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SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



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1851 




1901 



Albany Law School 



May 29, 190 1. 



T^HIS PAMPHLET is published for distribution among 
the Alumni of the Albany Law School pursuant to 
action of the Alumni Association. It contains a brief 
account of the exercises at the celebration of the semi-cen- 
tennial of the Law School on May 29, together with the 
addresses delivered on that occasion. 

A. Page Smith, 

Secretary. 

The following- is the table of contents : 

PAGE 

Circular Letter from Committee on Organization • • • 2 

Honorary and Active Committee on Semi-Centennial 3 

Organization of Committee and Sub -committees 4 

Programme of Exercises 5 

Proceedings of Meeting of the Alumni for reorganization with 

the names of officers elected . 6 

Remarks of Amasa J. Parker, '64, upon Calling the Association to 

Order 6 

Remarks of William P. Rudd, '75, upon being chosen as Temporary- 
Chairman 7 

Constitution adopted by Alumni Association 8 

Afternoon Session 11 

Address of Chief Judge Alton B. Parker, LL.D., '72 ...... 11 

Address of Presiding Justice William W. Goodrich, '53 .... . 12 

Address by Wheeler H. Peckham, '52 26 

Historical Sketch, by George Lawyer, '87 31 

Address of Dean Fiero, LL.D 36 

Evening Session 45 

Address of William H. McElroy, '61, to Graduating Class .... 45 
Address by President A. V. V. Raymond, D.D., LL.D., on con- 
ferring Degrees 49 

Conferring of Degree on President McKinley 52 

Circular letter sent out by Officers of Alumni Association .... 54 

Alumni Officers 55 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



. OF THE . . 



Albany Law School 



HELD . 



May 29, 1 90 1 



Law Dep't of 
UNION UNIVERSITY 






SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



Circular Letter from Committee on Organization. 
Albany Law School, 

Albany, Nb^st York, 



Amasa J. Parker, prfsident. 
J. Newton Fiero, dean. 



Albany, N. Y., April 4, 1901. 



Dear Sir: 

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Albany Law School 
held on March 26, it was the unanimous opinion of the members of the 
Board that the completion of fifty years of active work by this school 
should be the occasion of anniversary exercises commemorating that 
event, and a committee was selected to take charge of the matter, con- 
sisting of fifteen honorary members, including among its more distin- 
guished graduates, the President of the United States, Chief Judge of 
the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, one of the Justices of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, Senators, Foreign Ministers, 
Judges, and Justices of the Supreme Court of the State, and an active 
committee to consist of three members of the Board of Trustees, two 
members of the Faculty and fifty Alumni chosen from classes graduating 
from '52 to igoi inclusive. 

The Board has taken the liberty of placing your name, among 
others, upon the list. It is sincerely hoped that you will consent to act, 
and, if possible, as an active member of the Committee, will take part 
in a meeting for its organization, which will be held at the Law School, 
on April 15, at 8 p. m. Unless a declination is received, we shall regard 
you as accepting the appointment. 

It is expected that in a general way the exercises will consist of a 
historical sketch of the School, addresses, etc., on Commencement Day, 
May 29, 1901. 

We forward this notification on behalf of the Board, having been 
appointed a committee for that purpose. 

Yours very respectfully, 

. Amasa J. Parker, 

'. .' J. Newton Fiero, 

James W. Eaton, 

Committee of Board 

of Trustees. 



jAVolcA, 






ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



Members of Semi-Centennial Committee. 

HONORARY COMMITTEE. 



Hon. William Mckinley, 
Chief Judge Alton B. Parker, 73, 
Justice Irving G. Vann, '67, 
U. S. Senator William T. Vilas, '68, 
Minister to Austria Bartlett Tripp, 
Justice William W. Goodrich, '53, 
Justice Miles Beach, '55, 
Justice .D Cady Herrick, '67, 



'67, Honorary Chairman, 
Justice David J. Brewer, '58, 
U. S. Senator Redfield Proctor, '60, 
Minister to China Edwin H. Conger, '66, 
Justice Charles E. Dwight, '53, 
Justice William D. Dickey, '66, 
Justice William E. Scripture, '67, 
Justice Albert H. Sewell, '73. 



COMMITTEE. 

Members from the Board of Trustees. 

Rev. Andrew V. V. Raymond, LL.D., Justice Judson S. Landon, LL.D., 

Charles J. Buchanan. 



Members from the Faculty. 



J. Newton Fiero, LL.D. 



James W. Eaton 



Members from the Alumni. 



'52, Wheeler H. Peckham, 


'77, 


'53, Worthington Frothingham, 


'78, 


'54, Alexander J. Thompson, 


'79, 


'55, Anson S. Wood, 


'80, 


'56, William R. Davidson, 


'81, 


'57, George M. Beebe, 


'83, 


'58, Herbert B. Turner, 


'83, 


'59, Dean Sage, 


'84, 


'60, Fisher A. Baker, 


'85, 


'61, William H. McElroy, 


'86, 


'62, Thomas H. Hubbard, 


'87, 


'63, Lewis E. Carr, 


'88, 


'64, Amasa J. Parker, 


'89, 


'65, Ira B. Kerr. 


'90, 


'66, Timothy M. Griffing, 


'91. 


'67, William G. Tracey, 


'92, 


'68, Edward D. Ronan, 


'93, 


'69, Orris U. Kellogg, 


'94, 


'70, Andrew S. Draper, 


'95, 


'71, Charles M. Preston, 


'96, 


'72, J. Franklin Port, 


'97, 


'73, John M. Kellogg, 


'98, 


'74, Edwin A. Bedell, 


'99, 


'75, William P. Rudd, 


'00, 


'76, John De Witt Warner, 


'01, 



Arthur C. Wade, 
William N. Dykman, 
Archie E. Baxter, 
John P. Grant, 
James H. Eckles, 
F. W. Cameron, 
Robert J. Landon, 
Zeb. A. Dyer, 
George N. Southwick, 
Frederick Stephan, 
George W. Stedman, 
Edwin C. Angle, 
Jacob C. E. Scott, 
Harold L. Hooker, 
Henry R. Follet, 
Edward Murphy, 2d, 
Alton G. Schott, 
Robert E. Healey, 
Frank H. Deal, 
Charles Irving Oliver, 
Arthur R. Walsh, 
Peter A Hart, 
Foster Pruyn, 
Walter Herrick, 
Dayton F. Smith. 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



ALUMNI OFFICERS. 

Chairman, ... - Hon. Judson S. Landon 

Secretary, . . . - . William R. Davidson 

Temporary Chairman, - - - William Platt Rudd 

Temporary Secretary, .... Jacob C. E. Scott 



ALUMNI COMMITTEES. 

Executive. 

Amasa J. Parker, '63, Edward D. Ronan, '( 

David A. Thompson, Edward P. White, 

Edward Murphy, 2d. 



Entertainment and Reception. 

William P. Rudd, '75, A. Page Smith, 

George W. Stedman, Frederick E. Wadhams, 

Edward A. Bedell. 



Invitation. 

Frederick W. Cameron, William L. Visscher, 

Edwin Van Wormer, Foster Pruyn, 

Peter A. Hart. 



Printing and Publication. 

Jacob C. E. Scott, Jacob L. Ten Eyck, 

Mark Cohn, Isidore Wachsman, 

George Addington. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



Program for May 30th, 1901. 

II 00 a.m. Meeting of Alumni for Reorganization of 
Alumni Association, 

At Appellate Division Rooms, Cor. State and 
Chapel Streets. 

Brief Addresses by Distinguished Graduates. 

1. 00 p. m. Luncheon at Hotel Ten Eyck, 

Tendered by Albany County Bar Association 
to Trustees, Faculty and Alumni. 

3.00 p. m. Anniversary Exercises at Odd Fellows' Hall, 
Chief Judge Alton B. Parker, '72, presiding. 

Prayer, 

By Rev. A. V. V. Raymond, D. D., President of 
the University. 

Anniversary Address — "Fifty Years of Juris- 
prudence," 

By Hon. William W. Goodrich, '53, Presiding 
Justice Appellate Division, 2d Department. 

Music 

Historical Address, 

By George Lawyer, '87. 

Address — "The Albany Law School in its 
Relation to Legal Education," 

By J. Newton Fiero, LL.D., Dean of the Faculty. 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



Organization of Alumni Association. 

First on the program for the Semi-Centennial celebra- 
tion was the meeting and organization of the Alumni 
Association at ii a. m., at the rooms of the Appellate 
Division. 

The meeting was called to order by Amasa J. Parker, 
some 200 graduates of the Law School being present. Gen. 
Parker said: 

Gentlemen of the Albany Law School Aluin7ii: — 

As the President of the old Alumni Association it has been sug- 
gested that I call this meeting to order, and extend to you all a most 
hearty greeting. 

It is a singular fact, I believe, that I am the only alumnus present 
who has lived in Albany during all the fifty years of the existence of the 
Albany Law School, celebrated to-day, and who has seen each class of 
its students during that long period. 

I well recall my first visit, when a small boy, with my father, who 
was to deliver a lecture that day to the first class of students in the 
Albany Law School, in a room on the State Street side of the top story 
of the Exchange Building, at the foot of State Street, so long occupied 
by the old Post Office. 

I congratulate you upon the loyalty you have shown in coming here 
to-day in such great numbers, and many of you from far distant homes, 
to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the school. 

You are familiar with its history and know its remarkable growth 
since the reorganization of its Board of Trustees and Faculty within a 
short period of time. 

Six years ago our class numbered but 31 ; this year the two classes 
aggregate 135 students and we have every reason to expect an attend- 
ance ot 160 students when the Fall term begins. 

The old one year course recently gave way to the modern two year 
system and in many lines we have strengthened and simplified the plan 
of the school, so that it can to-day, with just pride and sound judgment, 
claim its equality with the other four vigorous institutions constituting 
Union University. 

No stronger proof of the work now being done in our school can be 
given than the fact that the students of the Albany Law School, on the 
average, pass higher in the State examinations for entrance to the bar 
than the students of any other similar law school in the country. 

This condition of affairs, however, is not sufficient to satisfy the 
Trustees and Faculty of our school and we are constantly studying to 
amplify, strengthen and elevate the course of study and in every way 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



improve and encourage each individual student in his work, not only- 
while here but if the opportunity presents itself, later on in the 
struggles of professional life, wherever he may settle. 

Here, to-day, in this goodly assembly, it is our opportunity to 
reorganize our Alumni Association upon a broader and more useful 
basis. Each of us can keep in mind the interests and future growth of 
the school here, and if the opportunity is offered, show our interest in 
and appreciation of our Alumni throughout the country. 

As the next step at this meeting it is in order to select a temporary 
Chairman, and I nominate for that place Wm. P. Rudd, Esq., of Albany, 
an alumnus of our school of the class of 1875. 

He is a lawyer of large experience and is President of Albany 
County Bar Association, so largely composed of graduates of the Albany 
Law School. 

Upon taking the chair as temporary chairman, Mr. 
Rtidd spoke as follows : 

I can add nothing to the words of the President of the Board of 
Trustees, General Parker, except to extend to you my thanks for the 
honor which comes to me by my selection as Chairman of the meeting 
of the Alumni of the Albany Law School, called when we are about to 
celebrate the Semi-Centennial of the foundation of our school, for the 
purpose of perfecting a permanent alumni association. 

General Parker in a few words outlined inamost interesting way the 
successful work of the school in the years past, the strength of the great 
body of its graduates in the practice of their profession, and the hopes 
and desires for the future entertained by those upon whom the responsi- 
bility for the carrying on of the work depends. 

The large attendance of graduates present indicates a hearty 
response to the suggestion made a few weeks since that it would be 
fitting and proper to take note of the fact that the work of the Albany 
Law School had fully spanned the latter half of the last century, and I 
believe that you can here organize an association of the graduates of the 
school, which will do much to strengthen the hands of the men who are 
laboring, and have for years labored as members of the Board of 
Trustees, and as instructors, in making for the school the name which 
it holds among the institutions giving instruction in the law. 

Of our graduates the school certainly is proud and it is most gratify- 
ing to realize that we have here at this time among those in attendance, 
representatives from almost every class from that of the first in 1851, 
down to the one which graduated a year ago. 

It is not my desire to detain you longer, and in order that the meet- 
ing may accomplish the purpose for which it is called, I await your 
further pleasure. 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



The following were appointed a committee to nominate 
officers for the ensuing- year: Judge John P. Grant, Stam- 
ford; Judge George H. Fitts, Cohoes; Milton A. Fowler, 
Poughkeepsie ; Edwin Van Wormer, Albany; William Hol- 
lands, Watervliet. 

While awaiting the reports of the committees Mr. J, C. 
E. Scott, secretary, read a number of letters from distin- 
guished graduates wishing the Association success and 
expressing regret at inability to be present. 

Among them were letters from President Harrison, of 
the University of Pennsylvania; Governor Odell, Archie E. 
Baxter, Judge Peckham, former Dean Horace E. Smith and 
many others. 

Men of the older classes were then introduced, begin- 
ning with Wheeler H. Peckham, of New York City, class of 
'52. Mr. Peckham spoke briefly of the school's work and of 
its standard reputation throughout the country. 

The Committee appointed to draft Constitution reported 
the following, which was unanimously adopted. 



Constitution: 



ARTICLE I. 

NAME. 

The name of this Association shall be "Association of the Alumni 
OF Albany Law School." 

ARTICLE II. 

OBJECT. 

The object of this Association shall be to promote the welfare and 
interests of the Albany Law School, also known as the Law Department 
of Union University, and to preserve and encourage friendship among 
its graduates. 

ARTICLE III. 

MEMBERS. 

All persons who shall sign the register at this meeting possessing 
qualifications of membership hereinafter provided, shall constitute the 
present membership of this Association. No person shall be eligible to 
membership in this Association unless he has been graduated from or 
been in attendance at the Albany Law School for at least one half of the 
period required for graduation at the time of his attendance, or is a 
member of the Board of Trustees or Faculty. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



ARTICLE IV. 

OFFICERS. 

Section i. The officers of this Association shall consist of an Hon- 
orary President, a President, five Vice-Presidents (one of whom shall 
be a resident of the city of Albany), a Secretary and a Treasurer, and 
five members, to be elected as hereinafter provided, who together shall 
constitute the Executive Committee. 

Sec. 2. The Honorary President, the President, Vice-Presidents, 
Secretary and Treasurer shall be chosen at the annual meeting, and 
shall continue in office until their successors are elected. 

Sec. 3. The remaining members of the Executive Committee shall 
be chosen at the first annual meeting for a period of one year, and their 
successors shall be chosen for a like period. 

Sec. 4. The President shall preside at the meetings of the Associa- 
tion, and shall also be chairman of the Executive Committee. 

Sec 5. The Vice-President residing in Albany shall discharge the 
duties of President in case of the absence of the President. In event of 
the death or resignation of the President such vacancy shall be filled 
from the number of Vice-Presidents by the Executive Committee. 

Sec 6. The Treasurer shall collect, and under the direction of the 
Executive Committee, disburse all funds. He shall make an annual 
report of all moneys received and disbursed by him at the annual meet- 
ing. His accounts shall be subject to audit by the Executive 
Committee. 

Sec. 7, The Secretary shall keep minutes of all regular and special 
meetings of the Association and of the Executive Committee. He shall 
notify all persons of their election to membership in the Association, 
and shall perform such other duties as the Executive Committee shall 
designate. 

Sec 8. Vacancy in any office shall be filled by the Executive Com- 
mittee for the unexpired portion of the term. 

ARTICLE V. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

Sec I. The Executive Committee shall have general charge of the 
affairs of this Association, its funds and property. It shall be its duty 
to carry out the objects of this Association, and to advance its interests 
on all occasions. 

Sec 2. The Executive Committee shall meet at least twice in each 
year to deliberate upon the condition and affairs of the Association, at 
such times and places as they may deem proper. 
ARTICLE VI. 

ADMISSION OF MEMBERS. 

Sec I. Application for membership in this Association shall be 
made to the Secretary thereof at least three days before each annual 
meeting, and shall be endorsed by the Dean or Secretary of the Faculty 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



to the effect that such appHcant has been in attendance at the Law School 
for the period required by Article III. This section shall not apply to 
any person joining the Association before Commencement, 1902. 

Sec. 2. All applications for membership shall be acted upon at the 
annual meeting of the Association. 

Sec. 3. The annual dues of members of this Association shall be 
One Dollar ($1) a year, payable on or before the first day of June in each 
and every year. All dues shall be paid to the Treasurer, who shall give 
his receipt therefor. 

ARTICLE VII. 

ANNUAL MEETING. 

The Annual Meeting of this Association shall be held in the city of 
Albany on the last Commencement Day of Albany Law School in each 
and every year. Notice of such annual meeting shall be given by the 
Secretary at least fifteen days in advance thereof. 
ARTICLE VIII. 

NOMINATING COMMITTEE. 

The President shall appoint not less than five, nor more than nine 
members of the Executive Committee who shall constitute the Com- 
mittee on Nominations. Such committee shall meet at least ten days 
before the annual election and shall proceed to select nominees for all 
offices in the Association, and report the same at the annual meeting. 
ARTICLE IX. 

AMENDMENTS. 

Amendments to this Constitution may be made at any annual meet- 
ing, provided they shall be assented to by two-thirds of the members 
present at such meeting. 

Officers of Alumni Association, 

Elected May 29, 1901. 

Honorary President, Hon. William McKinley, Class '67. 

President, Chief Judge Alton B. Parker, of the Court of Appeals, '72. 

First Vice-President, Judge Irving G. Vann, '67. 

Second Vice-President, Wheeler H. Peckham, '52. 

Third Vice-President, Justice David J. Brewer, '58. 

Fourth Vice-President, Lewis E. Carr, '63. 

Fifth Vice-President, Adelbert Moot, '77. 

Executive Committee, William P. Rudd, Samuel S. Hatt, Andrew J. 

Nellis, Milton A. Fowler, R. C. Coleman. 
Secretary, A. Page Smith, 51 State Street, Albany, N. Y. 
Treasurer, Edwin Van Wormer, Tweddle Building, Albany, N. Y. 

After the meeting- the members adjourned to the Hotel 
Ten Eyck, where luncheon was served by the Albany 
County Bar Association. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL II 

Afternoon Session. 

At the afternoon session Chief Judge Parker, president- 
elect, presided, the exercises being as follows : 

Prayer by the President of the University, 

Opening Address by Chief Judge Alton B. Parker. 

I doubt if there can be found in this State a lawyer who will ques- 
tion the assertion that a student of the Law school has a very substantial 
advantage over the student of the law office in preparing for the serious 
work of the profession. If one can be found then will I show you a man 
who has not examined with any care the records showing the percentage 
of failures in examination for the bar of students of the law office as 
compared with that of the Law school, as well as a man who fails to 
appreciate the real difference between a thorough and systematic study of 
the principles of the law under the direction of skillful instructors and the 
uninstructed and therefore, at times, misdirected study of the law. The 
situation, however, was very different a half a century ago when by an act 
of the legislature the University of Albany was incorporated with power to 
create a department of law having the right to grant diplomas and to 
confer the usual literary honors and degrees. Comparatively little of 
effort had been employed down to that time in the direction of ascertain- 
ing how best to ground a student in the fundamental principles of the 
law, but some of the strong men of Albany saw clearly into the future 
and almost immediately after the passage of the university incorpora- 
tion act, a law department was organized with Judge Amasa J. Parker, 
Judge Ira Harris and Amos Dean as professors. The two former were 
at that time serving on the Supreme Court bench. For seventeen years 
these strong, broad-minded and learned men gave to that institution, to 
which we owe so much, the best work of which they were capable and 
under them the Law school steadily grew because from it were grad- 
uated men who by reason of the method of instruction were far more 
richly endowed with the ever-enduring principles of the law, than those 
who without direction from trained minds were struggling to master the 
law in the various law offices during the intermissions between copying 
pleadings, affidavits and records as some compensation for the privilege 
of studying in the offices. 

That the work of the law department of the university has been 
well done is suggested by the long line of graduates who have achieved 
distinction both on the bench and at the bar in this as well as a number 
of other states of the Union, and it is proved by the result of the uni- 
form examinations conducted by the board of examiners. Allow me to 
read you the evidence in support of that assertion. In the year 1900, 
out of 876 candidates for admission to the bar in this state, 113 failed 
once, while of the 40 graduates of the Albany Law school for that year, 
all but one passed upon the first examination: "In the year 1899 every one 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



of the Students was admitted on the first examination, while in the year 
1898, out of the 32 presenting themselves for the June examination, 31 
passed and no other graduate of that year was rejected at any subse- 
quent examination. From '95 to '97, inclusive, eight per cent of its 
students were rejected on such examinations, as against 29 per cent 
who had not attended any law school, and against 14 per cent who had 
attended other law schools."* 

These are the results of which Dr. Raymond and the university 
authorities, and the trustees of the Law school, headed by their presi- 
dent. Gen. Parker, may well be proud — results which were assured 
when the trustees chose J. Newton Fiero to be the dean, and associated 
with him a faculty not surpassed by any other law school in this 
country. Results which are very gratifying to us, the alumni of this old 
institution who are glad to be able to point with pride to the increasing 
vigor of our legal alma mater. 



Address by William W. Goodrich, 

Presiding Justice, Appellate Division, 2d Department. 

"fifty years of jurisprudence." 

Fifty years in the life of a man usually compass the entire period of 
his activity. Fifty years in the life of this great educational institution 
only begin its usefulness. Fifty years, the last of the 19th centurjr, 
have witnessed greater advances in matters scientific and material than 
any previous half century in the world's history. The coincidence of 
the half century in the life of this school and the world's greatest pro- 
gress suggests my theme and renders it not inappropriate that 1 should 
attempt a very cursory review of advances in jurisprudence and legis- 
lation, which have made these years memorable in judicial history. 

In the short time accorded to me, I must confine my remarks chiefly 
to a few important decisions of the United States Supreme Court and 
of our Court of Appeals, and to legislation of Congress and our own 
State. 

In order to furnish a sufficient background, let me briefly sketch the 
material progress of the half century, for out of it has grown the neces- 
sity for new applications of ancient principles of the common law and the 
enactment of statutes, to meet the altered conditions of modern life. 

In 1850, there were 9,000 miles of steam railroads in operation in the 
United States. Now, there are more than 250,000 miles. The last 
census shows that the property of railroad corporations amounts to 
more than $13,000,000,000, about one-eighth of the aggregate value of 
the real and personal property in the country. These railroads cross 
the continent from east to west, from north to south, with a network of 
iron, binding the nation into a homogeneous entity. It is evident that 

*The result of the June, 1901, examinations is that of the 49 graduates applying 
for admission all passed. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



13 



the law applicable to stage coaches under the immediate supervision of 
their owners has comparatively little relation to the ten thousand daily- 
trains of the great railroad corporations of the present day. 

The steamship Savannah, slowly and painfully, crept across the 
Atlantic, in 1819, using pitch pine wood for fuel and having a joint in 
her shaft so that in stormy weather the side-wheels could be folded in 
upon the deck. The iirst line of ocean steamships was established in 
1837. Now, thousands of great steamers traverse river, lake and sea, 
some of them each year carrying as much freight and as many passen- 
gers as were carried annually in all the sailing vessels that left our 
harbors before 1850. 

In 1844, Professor Morse erected the first telegraph line, from 
Baltimore to Washington. In 1857, the first cable was laid under the 
Atlantic. In 1878, the telephone, which for some time had been used 
as a mere scientific plaything, was put into practical and extensive use. 
Even in 1851, commercial communication was carried on chiefly by 
mail. The merchant's contracts for foreign goods were made long in 
advance of their possible arrival, in written agreements or in volumi- 
nous correspondence. Now, brief cablegrams condense the terms, and 
these are to be construed by judges whose experience has familiarized 
them with customs and habits of mercantile thought not dreamed of in 
the earlier part of the century. 

These great changes in methods of transportation and communica- 
tion revolutionized the commerce of the world and required equivalent 
changes in the application of old or the declaration of new principles, 
or, failing these, the enactment of statutes. In England, the great 
carrier nation, limitations against the liability of a carrier on land or by 
sea were inserted in bills of lading, even against damages from the 
carrier's own negligence, and became so oppressive that the courts pro- 
nounced many of them invalid as against public policy. It is evident 
that the simple rules of law suitable to the caravels of Columbus would 
fall far short of meeting the requirements of the greyhounds of the 
Atlantic. 

In 1 85 1, Congress passsd an act limiting the liability of vessel 
owners for damages to property, to the value of the vessel and pending 
freight. This was analagous to the liability of stockholders in corpora- 
tions. In 1893, Congress passed the Harter Act, forbidding the inser- 
tion in bills of lading issued by foreign going vessels, of any clause 
relieving the owners from loss by negligence in the care and proper 
delivery of cargo. 

In Railroad Co. v. Lockwood (17 Wall. 357), the Supreme Court of 
the United States, in the last opinion written by Chief Justice Chase, 
held that a common carrier, either of goods or passengers, cannot law- 
fully stipulate for exemption from liability for damages to a drover 
traveling on a pass with his cattle, when such exemption is not reason- 
able in the eye of the law; and that it is not just and reasonable in the 



14 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

eye of the law for a common carrier to stipulate for exemption from 
responsibility for the negligence of himself or his servants. 

On the other hand, in Wells v. N. Y. C. Railroad Co. (24 N. Y. 181) 
and Bissell v. The Same (25 id. 442) the Court of Appeals held that a 
common carrier of passengers may stipulate with gratuitous passengers 
against responsibility for the negligence of his servants. 

A most important doctrine was announced in The Genesee Chief 
(12 How. 443), where it was held that admiralty jurisdiction under the 
federal constitution was not limited to tide waters according to the 
English rule, but extended to all public navigable lakes and rivers where 
commerce is carried on between different states or with foreign nations. 

Cooley V. Port Wardens (12 How. 299) involved the constitution- 
ality of a pilotage law of Pennsylvania. The Court held that the 
power of Congress to regulate foreign and interstate commerce was 
exclusive as to the subjects of the power in their nature national or 
admitting only one uniform system at place of regulation, and concur- 
rent as to all other subjects. Instances of concurrent power are the 
bridging of navigable streams (Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713); 
Harbor Improvement Laws (County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 
691); and Quarantine Laws (Morgan's S. S. Co. v. Louisiana Board of 
Health, 118 U. S. 455)- 

In Ex parte Milligan (71 U. S. 2), it was declared that Congress 
could not invest military commissioners organized during the Civil war, 
in a state not invaded or in rebellion, with jurisdiction to try a citizen 
not a resident of a rebellious state and not a prisoner of war nor a per- 
son engaged in military or naval service, and that the guaranty of trial 
by jury was intended for a state of war as well as a state of peace; that 
neither the president, nor Congress, nor the judiciary, can disturb the 
safeguards of civil liberty incorporated in the constitution, except so far 
as the right is given to suspend habeas corpus in certain cases; and 
that as the suspension of the privilege of the writ did not suspend the 
writ itself, the Court on its return must decide whether the petitioner is 
entitled to the writ. 

In the Legal Tender Cases (79 U. S. 458), it was declared that the 
acts of Congress, known as the legal tender acts, were unconstitutional 
when applied to contracts made either before or after their passage. 
This was all the more remarkable as, in the earlier case of Hepburn v. 
Griswold (75 U. S. 603), the Court had announced a contrary rule as to 
contracts made before the passage of the acts. The Hepburn opinion 
was written by Chief Justice Chase, who, as secretary of the treasury 
during the Civil war, had used the legal tender acts throughout his in- 
cumbency of that office. He and three other justices dissented from 
the opinion in the later case. It is to be regretted that the controlling 
force of this decision will always be diminished by a suspicion in many 
conservative minds that Congress added new justices to the Court in 
order to secure a reversal of the earlier decision. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 15 



In the "Virginia Coupon Cases (123 U. S. 443), the Eleventh Amend- 
ment, which declares that the judicial power of the United States shall 
not be construed to extend to suits against one of the United States by- 
citizens of another state, was under consideration, and it was held that 
a suit to compel state ofificers to perform certain official acts was in efifect 
a suit against the state itself, and could not be maintained. 

Ln 7-e Debs (158 U. S. 564), held that the Federal government had 
power over interstate commerce and the transmission of mails, might 
in the exercise of that power remove all obstructions put upon highways 
to interfere with such commerce or mails, and that the Circuit Court of 
the United States might issue injunctions for that purpose. 

Smith V. Ames (i6g U. S. 466) decided that corporations are persons 
within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that 
no state shall deprive any person of property without due process of 
law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection 
of the laws, and consequently that a state legislature cannot so conclu- 
sively determine the reasonableness of transportation charges that the 
matter may not become the subject of judicial inquiry. 

In 1851, Congress was discussing questions of compromise on the 
slavery question. Since that time slavery has been abolished ; a civil 
war has been fought and great questions of reconstruction have arisen 
and been decided. The famous, or infamous, Dred Scott decision (19 
How. 393) was delivered in 1S56, the opinion of the court being written 
by Chief Justice Taney. Each member of the court wrote upon the 
questions involved. It was held that a free negro whose ancestors 
were brought to this country and sold as slaves was not a citizen within 
the meaning of the constitution, and consequently, that the special 
rights and immunities guaranteed to citizens did not apply to him. A 
civil war and amendments to the constitution were required to counter- 
act the baleful effect of that decision. 

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the 
Constitution of the United States were adopted in 1865 and 1870, and 
were followed by the Civil Rights Act, passed by Congress in 1875, 
which ordained that full and equal rights in public conveyances, inns 
and places of amusement should be afforded to citizens of every race 
and color, without regard to previous condition of servitude. 

In the Slaughter House Cases (S3 U. S. 36), it was held that it is 
only privileges and immunities that belong to a man because he is a cit- 
izen of the United States, as distinguished from the privileges and im- 
munities of a citizen of the state, that are rendered inviolable by the 
first section of the Fourteenth Amendment from hostile legislation of 
the states; that these privileges and immunities are such as arise out of 
the nature and essential character of the national government, the laws 
and treatise of the constitution ; and it was said that the clause was 
clearly intended to prevent hostile discrimination against negroes in 
states where they have been slaves. 



I 6 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

In United States v. Cruikshank (92 U. S. 542), the following conclu- 
sions were reached. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a state from 
depriving any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of 
law, and from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal 
protection of the laws ; but it adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as 
against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any 
encroachment by the states upon the fundamental rights which belong 
to every citizen as a member of society. The duty of protecting all its 
citizens in the enjoyment of an equality of rights was originally assumed 
by the states, and still remains there. The only obligation resting upon 
the United States is to see that the states do not deny the right. This 
the amendment guarantees, but no more. The power of the national 
government is limited to the enforcement of this guaranty. 

Strauder v. West Virginia (100 U. S. 303) held that the Fourteenth 
Amendment was one of a series of constitutional provisions having a 
common purpose, namely, to secure to a recently emancipated race 
which had been held in slavery through many generations all the civil 
rights that the superior race enjoys, and to give to it the protection of 
the general government, in the enjoyment of such rights, whenever they 
should be denied by the states ; that it not only gave citizenship and 
its privileges to persons of color, but denied that any state had powder 
to withhold from them the equal protection of the laws, and invested 
Congress with power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce its provis- 
ions; and that it conferred by necessary implication a positive immu- 
nity or right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them 
distinctly as colored people. 

In Walker v. Sauvinet (92 U. S. 90) the court decided that in a civil 
action a jury trial was not essential to due process of law under the ist 
section of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Spies V. Illinois (Anarchist Case, 123 U. S. 131) held that the first 
ten articles of amendment to the federal constitution were not intended 
to limit the power of the states in respect to their own people, but to 
operate on the national government only, and that the right to challenge 
a juror is the right to reject, not the right to select, a juror, and if from 
those who remain^an impartial jury is obtained, the constitutional right 
of the accused islmaintained. 

The Chinese Exclusion Cases (149 U. S. 69S) asserted the power of 
the political departments of the government to exclude or expel aliens 
in war or in peace as an inherent right of a sovereign nation. 

In U. S. V. Wong Kim Ark (169 U. S. 649), the court held that a 
child, born in the United States, of Chinese parents, subjects of the 
Chinese emperor,and not in diplomatic or official capacity, but having a 
permanent domicile in the United States, becomes a citizen by virtue of 
tha Fourteenth Amendment. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 1 7 

The Spanish war thrust upon us a world wide influence and power, 
and new territories are demanding new laws or the application of 
ancient principles to their government. 

The decisions of the Supreme Court, in the Porto Rico Cases, are too 
recent to permit an analysis of the conclusions there reached, except to 
say that they appear to establish the doctrine that Porto Rico and, in- 
ferentially, the Philippines are a part of our territory, and that the 
Congress has power of legislation in regard to them, both as to their 
present and future condition, either as territories or prospective states; 
that their inhabitants are not citizens of the United States, and that 
their rights under the Constitution are governed less by the positive 
guaranties of that instrument than by its prohibitions, which forbid the 
Executive and Congress to do anywhere any act abhorrent to justice 
and humanity. 

Among the celebrated cases in this state is Story v. N. Y. Elev. R. 
R. Co. (go N. Y. 122), where the court announced the doctrine that an 
elevated railroad was a new burden upon the streets, and that owners 
of abutting land were entitled to compensation. 

In People v. N. Y. & H. R. R. R. Co. (28 Hun, 543), it was held that 
a railroad corporation may be compelled by mandamus to exercise its 
duties as a carrier of freight and passengers, the power so to compel it 
resting upon the duty implied in the acceptance of its franchise. 

A very forcible illustration of the correction of judicial decision by 
legislative enactment is found in the subject of charitable uses. In 
Williams v. Williams (S N. Y. 525), it was held that where a devise to 
charitable uses is so indefinite as to be incapable of being executed by a 
judicial decree, the representative of the donor must prevail over the 
charity. This doctrine was repudiated by the case of Levy v. Levy 
(33 N. Y. 97), which continued to be the law culminating in Tilden v. 
Green (130 N. Y. 29), where it was held that the English doctrine of 
cy prcs, which upholds gifts for charitable purposes when no beneficiary 
is named, has no place in the jurisprudence of this state. To meet this 
condition of the law, the legislature passed chapter 701 of the laws of 
1893, providing that a gift, grant or devise to charitable uses, otherwise 
valid under the laws of this state, should not be invalidated by indefi- 
niteness or uncertainty in the persons designated as beneficiaries; and 
that where no trustee was named in the instrument, the title to the 
lands should vest in the Supreme Court. 

In the matter of Jacobs (the Tenement House Cigar Case, g8 N. Y. 
97) ; People v. Marx (the Oleomargarine Case, 99 id. 377) and People v. 
Gillson (the Tea Store Gift Case, 109 id. 389), the doctrine was recog- 
nized that the right to liberty secured to the citizen by the federal and 
state constitutions included the right to adopt and follow any lawful and 
industrial pursuits not injurious to the community; and that it is within 
the province of the courts to decide whether an act ostensibly passed for 
the protection of the public health is really appropriate to that purpose. 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



Rumsey v. N. Y. & New Eng. R. R. Co. (133 N. Y. 79), overruling 
Gould V. Hudson River R. R. Co. (6 id, 522) and in accord vpith Yates 
V. Milwaukee (10 Wall. 497), held that the owner of land upon a navi- 
gable river has the right of access to the navigable part of the stream 
and the right to construct a wharf ; and that when a railroad company, 
acting under legislative authority, had constructed its road across the 
water front of such owner, he was entitled to recover his damages. 

In 1 85 1, street railroads and trolley wires were unknown. Now, no 
considerable town is without them. Their operation produced a verita- 
ble Pandora's Box of litigation, until more than one-half the trial calen- 
dars in the cities consisted of what we familiarly call negligence causes 
and it became necessary to create a new appellate tribunal, whose unan- 
imous affirmance should relieve the calendars of the Court of Appeals. 

It is a very singular fact, when considered in connection with this 
vast amount of litigation, that there has been a slow process of evolu- 
tion in the law applicable to such causes, without any striking advance 
in any single decision. 

In Fleckenstein v. Dry Dock R. Co. (105 N. Y. 655) and in Fenton 
V. Second Ave. R'd Co. (126 id. 625), it was held that a street railroad 
company has a paramount but not exclusive right to the use of its tracks, 
and that while a person driving on the tracks is not absolutely bound to 
get off, he must not carelessly, recklessly or wilfully obstruct the pass- 
age of the car, but must use reasonable care to keep out of the way. 

The court held, in Crispin v. Babbitt (81 N. Y. 516) that the liability 
of a master to his employe, for the negligent act of a fellow servant, did 
not depend on the grade of the latter but on the character of the act. 

In Robinson v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co. (66 N. Y. 11), it was 
held that a person riding by invitation with a competent driver is not 
chargeable with his negligence. 

Eckert v. L. I. R. Co. (43 N. Y. 502) decided that while a person 
who voluntarily places himself in a place of danger, for the purpose of 
saving property, is negligent, j^et the law has so high a regard for 
human life that it will not impute negligence in an effort to preserve it, 
unless under circumstances constituting rashness in the judgment of 
prudent persons. 

Urquhart v. City of Ogdensburgh (91 N. Y. 69) held that where 
power is conferred upon a municipal corporation to make local improve- 
ments, its exercise is quasi judicial or discretionary, and for a failure to 
act or an erroneous estimate of the public needs, a civil action to re- 
cover damages occasioned thereby cannot be maintained against it. 

Babbage v. Powers (130 N. Y. 281) laid down the rule that while the 
public is entitled to have a street remain in the condition in which it 
placed it, and whoever, without special authority, materially obstructs 
it or renders its use hazardous is guilty of a nuisance, yet when it ap- 
pears that the act was done with the consent of the proper officials, the 
rule of liability is relaxed and rests upon and is limited by the ordinary 
principles governing acts of negligence. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL I9 



Thomas v. Winchester (6 N. Y. 397) held that a dealer in drugs, who 
carelessly labels a deadly poison as a harmless medicine and sends it 
so labeled into the market, is liable to all persons who without fault on 
their part are injured by using it as such medicine in consequence of 
the false label. 

In 185 1, there were few industrial corporations, and mercantile 
"trusts" were unknown. Now, vast combinations control the outputs of 
all prominent industries, and we talk flippantly of a corporation with 
onlya hundred millions of capital. 

In People v. North River Sugar Ref. Co. (121 N. Y. 582) the court 
adjudged the dissolution of the defendant corporation for violation of 
its charter. Judge Finch, in a masterly opinion, said that the corpora- 
tion had, by agreement with sixteen other corporations, become an 
integral part and constituent element of a combination which possessed 
over it an absolute control and which had absorbed most of its corporate 
functions and dictated the extent and manner and terms of its entire 
business activity, having only the shell of the corporation standing, 
that such a combination destroyed the normal functions of the corpora- 
tions and crippled their separate activity and independent action, and 
was injurious to the public interests. He added (p. 625): "The indi- 
viduals are few who hold in possession such enormous wealth, and 
fewer still who peril it all in a manufacturing enterprise ; but if corpo- 
rations can combine, and mass their forces in a solid trust or partner- 
ship, with little added risk to the capital already embarked, without 
limit to the magnitude of the aggregation, a tempting and easy road is 
opened to enormous combinations, vastly exceeding in number and in 
strength and in their power over industry any possibilities of individual 
ownership." Similar views were expressed in State v. Standard Oil Co. 
(49 Ohio, 137) and in People v. Chicago Gas Trust Co. (130 111. 268). 

The contest between capital and labor caused one of the most 
serious problems of the half centur3^ Manual labor, to an ever-increas- 
ing extent, is being superseded by machinery. The cotton gin, the 
sewing machine, agricultural implements and many new inventions 
have driven mechanic and laborer into trade union combinations, to 
protect their own interests. Capital and labor confront each other in 
armed and angry struggle for supremacy. The truth of my statement 
is sadly attested by the recent presence of the National Guard in your 
city, and by the shadowed homes where women weep above their dead 
and wounded. Federal and state courts and legislatures, while seeking 
to regard the rights of all men to the fruits of their own labor and indus- 
try, have been busied in attempts to protect the people against the 
great corporations, which grow rich in monopoly. 

A Moses or a Jefferson, a Mansfield or a Marshall, is needed to 
evolve methods to compose the differences between these contending 
interests. It is a curious fact that the nearest approach to a solution of 
the controversy has been made by a young and remote colony. I refer 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



to the compulsory arbitration law of New Zealand, enacted in 1894, 
which has been a distinct advance in adjusting and preventing disas- 
trous war between capital and labor. Curiously enough, the law is 
entitled: "An act to encourage the formation of industrial unions and 
associations and to facilitate the settlement of indtistrial disputes by 
conciliation and arbitration." The compulsion of the act is threefold, 
compulsory publicity, compulsory reference to a disinterested arbiter, 
and compulsory obedience to the award. 

Mr. Henry Lloyd, in his recent work, "A Country without Strikes," 
states the main features of the law as follows : 

"I. It applies only to industries in which there are trades unions 
(and these must be registered under the law). 

"2. It does not prevent private conciliation or arbitration. 

"3. Conciliation is exhausted by the state before it resorts to arbi- 
tration. 

"4. If conciliation proves unsuccessful, the disputants must arbi- 
trate. 

"5. Disobedience of the award may be punished or not at the dis- 
cretion of the court. " 

The court consists of three members appointed by the governor- 
general, two selected by him, one from men nominated by the working- 
men, one from men nominated b}^ the capitalists ; the third is a justice 
of the supreme court. The state does not initiate proceedings, and the 
court, like other courts, acts only on the call of one party or the other. 
So successfully has the law operated that there has not been a strike in 
New Zealand since its enactment; it is no longer a doubtful experiment. 

There seems to be periods when human thought is stirred up by 
some occult influence to new effort for progress. The Crusades, the 
Reformation, the French Revolution, and our own in 1775, represent 
such periods. Nowhere has this condition been more clearly mani- 
fested in the last half century than in the eiiorts which have been made 
toward codification of law. The tendency, however, has been more in 
the line of legislation, that is, the enactment of statutes to meet changed 
conditions, than it has been in expanding the common law by adapta- 
tion; and this, for the reason that it was impossible by judicial decision 
to expand the common law to meet all the conditions of modern civil- 
ization. 

There have been movements toward international codification in 
treaties, in laws to ameliorate rules of war, as in the Declaration of 
Paris, in 1856, in the International Maritime Conference of 1889, for 
establishing rules for the prevention of collisions at sea, in the Pan- 
American Conference and in The Hague Conference, which established 
international courts of arbitration. 

Much has been said of the flexibility of the common law. It has no 
flexibility. It has no self expansive force. Stare decisis has stood like 
a fortress, barring the road to change in the mind of every judge. In 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



early days it was found necessary to soften the harshness of the common 
law by equity, because its own rules were rigorous and unbending; and 
when even equity was powerless to remedy admitted wrongs, the power 
of legislation was invoked. 

Three centuries ago Lord Bacon, in parliament, urged upon King 
James the necessity of purging and revising the law as laid down in the 
sixty volumes of English reports then in existence. Compare this with 
the present multifariousness of judicial utterance. It is computed that 
more than 300,000 decisions annually are made by the courts of this 
country, more than 20,000 of which are by appellate tribunals. In igoo, 
there were published in the United States 420 volumes of federal and 
state reports, 77 volumes of digests, 95 volumes of statutes and about 
150 treatises. Reason staggers under this enormous burden. What 
intellect or industry can compass or digest the mass. We need a digest 
of digests. 

Moreover, decisions are often conflicting. Especially is this true of 
those of different states and the decisions of the federal and state courts, 
as for instance, the Lockwood, Bissell and Wells cases and the riparian 
rights decision, already referred to. 

Who can shut his eyes to the serious danger to the family relation 
involved in the many vexed questions growing out of the different 
divorce laws of the several states and the decisions thereunder, partly 
clarified by the recent Atherton and other cases in the United States 
Supreme Court. As the law has been announced in different jurisdic- 
tions, a divorced woman is liable to be adjudged a wife in one state and 
single in another; a wife in one state and a bigamist or adulteress in 
another. Children may be legitimate in one state and bastards in 
another. Where in all this is the "full faith and credit" which the fed- 
eral constitution requires to be given to the judicial proceedings of 
every other state? 

Yet such conflicting decisions form the substantive law upon which 
laymen must act, lawyers advise and courts decide. These difficulties 
have created a growing legal sentiment in the last half century in favor 
of codification of established principles of law and the formulation of 
new doctrines applicable to new conditions. 

The first real impetus in the United States toward this result had 
its inception in the labors of Mr. David Dudley Field, who, from 1840, 
devoted his life to radical reform in the administration of the law and to 
the preparation of codes of civil and criminal law. This state was the 
first to act in regard to correction of legal procedure We are all famil- 
iar with the history. The constitution of 1846 directed the legislature 
of that year adopted the Code of Procedure with the preamble reading, 
in part: "Whereas it is expedient that the present forms of actions and 
pleadings in cases at common law should be abolished, that the distinc- 
tion between legal and equitable remedies should no longer continue, 
and that an uniform course of proceeding in all cases should be estab- 
lished, etc." 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



The entire act had 391 sections and was embraced in 168 pages of 
the session laws. It took effect July i, 1848. Amendments suggested 
by experience were made by the legislature, until the modest code of 
39 1 sections has expanded to 3500 sections. 

Upon the adoption of the code, the profession at once divided into 
two factions, the old and the young lawyers. The former had mastered 
the forms and fictions, the pleadings and pitfalls of common law prac- 
tice, with detinue and debt, case and conversion, trespass and trover, 
and were reluctant to surrender ancient methods and weapons which 
had served their purpose in many a hard fought battle, and become 
humble learners of new methods under legislative pedagogues. 

On the other hand, the young lawyer, just about to enter upon his 
work, joyfully hailed emancipation from the straightness and artificial- 
ity of precedent which he dreaded to investigate and feared to use. 
Hence a battle royal ensued between conservatism and progress. It is 
impossible, within the limits of my address, to summarize the details of 
the contest between the old and the new schools. It is enough to say 
that the reform never went backward. 

Barbour's Supreme Court Reports and Howard's Practice Reports 
were at this time the current reports. Of the latter, two modest vol- 
umes of 254 and 282 pages had been issued. These with the first 264 
pages of the third volume comprised reports of decisions on practice for 
a period of 3''ears. 

The first decision in which the code was mentioned was that of 
Martin v. Vanderlip (3 How. Pr. 265), decided by Justice Willard. 
Nearly all the following pages of the volume grew out of the new code. 
In this and subsequent volumes, as also in Barbour's Reports, the names 
of Justices Parker and Harris, then members of the Supreme Court, two 
of our first professors, appear frequently. It was my good fortune, as 
a member of the Class of 1852, to be under these great judges and to 
hear their lectures upon the new practice. My recollection is that Judge 
Parker reluctantly and Judge Harris cheerfuUy bent their necks to the 
yoke of modernized procedure. I need not say that the change was im- 
provement on old methods, and that no lawyer of the present day would 
dream of returning to the old and cumbersome methods of practice, any 
more than we believe that the republic will retrograde into empire, as 
predicted by pessimistic philosophers of the Boston school. Take, for 
instance, the examination of parties as witnesses in their own behalf, or 
the permission to a prisoner to give testimony for himself. The modern 
lawyer would regard a repeal of these statutes as a relapse into 
barbarism. 

The example of New York was speedily followed in other states, 
twenty-eight of which, according to the estimate of our accomplished 
Dean, Mr. Fiero, have adopted our system of procedure to a greater or 
less degree. Even conservative England expressed her approval in the 
Judicature Acts of 1873, and the rules of practice based thereon. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 23 



Success of reform in practice gave impetus to further codification. 
In 1857, the legislature passed an act appointing commissioners for the 
preparation of a political code, a civil and a penal code. The chief in 
this great work was Mr. Field, and on the completion of these codes, I 
introduced them, at his request, into the legislature of 1866, of which I 
was a member. The only result was the printing of the codes and one 
meeting of the judiciary committees of the two houses, which spent 
three hours in reading twenty-five pages of the civil code and adjourn- 
ing, never to meet again until the day of final judgment. In 1881, how- 
ever, the Penal Code and the Code of Civil Procedure were enacted. 

The famous chapter 40 of the laws of 1848, authorizing the forma- 
tion of corporations for manufacturing, mining, mechanical or chemical 
purposes, of twenty-seven sections and seven pages, paved the way for 
the first appearance of such corporations in this state. Out of that 
chapter has grown a vast amount of statutory enactment which has 
culminated in elaborate statutes for the incorporation and control of all 
kinds of business corporations. 

Legislation for the protection of the property rights of married 
women, instituted in 1848, has been largely extended in the half cen- 
tury, not only here but in the other states. The New York statutes 
have been interpreted in the Court of Appeals, in Bertles v. Nunan (92 
N. Y. 152) and Hiles v. Fisher (144 id. 306). 

Other legislation has followed in this state, resulting in a partial 
compilation of statutes on various subjects, such as Domestic Relations, 
Marriage and Divorce, Negotiable Instruments, Real Estate, Corpora- 
tions, Trusts, Liens and Insurance, but the general scheme, being only 
partially adopted, is fragmentary and incomplete, resulting in confusion, 
worse confounded. Much remains to be done. Otherwise chaos will 
reign supreme. As well erect the walls of a building and leave it with- 
out a roof. As well stop work on the new East River bridge, and leave 
the towers of steel, lifting their tall heads into the air, as monuments of 
engineering skill, and never string the cables to carry the multitudes. 

History teaches that codification is feasable, and that while the 
difficulties are great, they are not unsurmountable. The first and most 
successful instance of codification of which we have a record was the 
Ten Commandments, and they have stood the test for thirty-five cen- 
turies. Hardly less in importance were Magna Charter and the Decla- 
ration of Independence, both of which were codes of the law of liberty. 
As such their influence has been incalculable. 

The Code of Theodosius, compiled in the fifth century, and the Code 
of Justinian, compiled in the sixth century, have dominated the civil law 
since their completion. They make the emperor.s, Theodosius and Jus- 
tinian, famous where the memory of contemporary rulers has faded into 
oblivion. It was just as difficult then as now, to reduce the laws of the 
empire to a code, yet it was done, doubtless to the disgust of many an 
ancient Roman lawyer. 



24 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

Los Partidas of Alphonse X, collated in 1250, in Spain, have been 
the law of all Spanish countries since that time. 

The Code of Alfred, the Great, in the ninth century, was the foun- 
dation of the English Common law. Of that code, Brander Matthews, 
in a recent article, says: "Second only to a community of language, no 
unifying force is more potent than a community of law. * * * And 
here (in the common law) again we find the handiwork of the great 
King Alfred, from whom we may date the establishing of an English 
literature. With the opportunism of our race, he had no thought of 
a new legislation, but merely merged the best of the tribal customs into 
a law for the whole kingdom. The kingdom sought to bring to light 
and to leave on record the righteous rulings of the wise men who had 
gone before." 

The Code Napoleon has been the basic law of France, Belgium and 
our own state of Louisiana, for nearly a century. Laws remain while 
empires decay. The laws of Solon and Lycurgus survive the ruined 
cities of Greece. The Pandects of Justinian have outlived the Forum. 

It has been said that the last half century has produced no great 
judges, like Mansfield and Marshall. The statement is fallacious be- 
cause the point of view is erronous. To each of these great judges 
came the rare opportunity to consider new principles of law. Mans- 
field's great fame resulted from his declaration of the mercantile law, 
more especially, the law of marine insurance, which was in its infancy 
when he delivered his luminous decisions which may be said to have 
codified the law upon those subjects. 

Marshall's fame will rest upon his matchless exposition of the Con- 
stitution. He had no precedents to guide him, but he evolved, as from 
his inner consciousness, the breadth and scope and limitations of con- 
stitutional authority, so that it was said of him that "he found the Con- 
stitulion paper, and made it power; he found it a skeleton and clothed 
it with flesh and blood." 

In 1850, judicial decisions had somewhat clarified our legal atmos- 
phere, and it seemed if nothing remained for discussion. But current 
events changed conditions, and new problems were submitted for 
adjudication. These have been wisely met by our courts, whose judges 
have maintained the ancient standards of research and learning. I do 
not hesitate to say that the average ability and learning of judges 
during the last half century has been greater than was the average 
before; and this, in just the same degree as the average education and 
intelligence of the people, from whom the judges come, has increased 
and the means of legal culture have improved. To this result this school 
has contributed in a signal degree, though in this presence it would be 
invidious for me to mention individual names. I say, in the words of 
the tablet in St. Paul's cathedral, in memory of Sir Christopher Wren, 
its builder, "If you would see his monument, look about you." 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 25 

No careful student of ethnology can fail to see that American insti- 
tutions are developing a new type of homogeneous character, differing 
radically from any of its composite elements. As friction produces 
electricity, so the contact of race with race in common action is gener- 
ating on this continent an individuality hitherto unknown. The Amer- 
ican is more Saxon than the Englishman, more Celtic than the Irishman, 
more Gaelic than the Frenchman, more Teutonic than the German. 
Physically and mentally, he is nervy, sinewy, robust and enterprising; 
intelligent, tactful and versatile. Slowly but surely, he is forging to 
the front, and eventually will dominate the world, not by brutish force 
but by example and result; not by conquest but by ideas and ideals. 
Ultimately, he will give law to the world. 

The march of Empire is still Westward. Even Lord Rosebery, 
conservative and English as he is, has not hesitated to predict the sub- 
lime transference of political power and the seat of empire, from the 
Eastern to the Western hemisphere. 

Concurrent with and emanating from this new character should be 
the evolution, as urged by Governor Hoadley, twenty years ago, of an 
American code of law, made possible by amendments to the federal 
constitution, a code embodying the common law as expounded by statu- 
tory legislation to meet new conditions, a code not declaratory alone of 
the federal law, or the law of a single state, but alchemically reduced 
from all ; a code embracing all subjects in which all states are alike 
interested, among them, transportation, bankruptcy, corporations, com- 
pulsory arbitration between capital and labor, marriage and divorce 
and civil rights; a code, not unalterable but readily adaptable to 
change as necessity arises, just as altered conditions have resulted in the 
adoption of amendments to the federal constitution. Such a code may 
not enrich the coffers of the lawyer, but it will lengthen the life of the 
judge. I venture to predict that out of the seething cauldron of legal 
strife and activity of our age. and within the lifetime of some of my 
hearers, an American Code will be formulated, adequate to the necessi- 
ties and exigencies of modern civilization. 

If Triboniau and his fifteen co-laborers could produce the Code of 
Justinian, in the early days, surely in these days our masters of legal 
science are competent to produce a code that shall embody the wisdom 
of preceding ages with wise provision of the futui'e. 

Our method will differ radically from the Roman method. She 
conquered the world and imposed her laws vi et armt's upon the subju- 
gated peoples. Our policy will be peaceful. We shall formulate laws 
which by their inherent justice will compel their adoption by the world. 
This will be at once the epiphany and the triumph of legal principles. 



26 semi-centennial exercises 

Address of Wheeler H. Peckham. 
"the lawyer of the future." 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Albany Law School: — 

Sincerely and earnestly I thank you for the opportunity of address- 
ing you this afternoon in the old city of Albany. It was my birth-place 
and the home of my youth and childhood. In those days many of my 
family were its citizens and all its citizens seemed my friends. 

I was one of the first class of your Law school, and well I remember 
its Professors, the Judges Parker and Harris, and the kindly, warm- 
hearted man, Amos Dean. 

Soon after ill health compelled me to leave Albany, and after some 
travelling 1 went to St. Paul, Minnesota, to live. Spending a few days 
here one spring I was invited by Judge Parker to accompany him to the 
school where he was about to lecture and afterwards to say something 
to the class. 

I told him what I had found about lawyers in the great West. 
That the Albany Law School had made for itself a great reputation, and 
that one who went there as one of its graduates had a great advantage 
in the strife for professional success. 

And it was true. The people were quick to recognize the intellect- 
ual strength and vigor that come from early training and from compe- 
tition that can be found only in the schools before the real life work of 
the lawyer is commenced. 

And what is that life work? Really and literally constant fighting. 
The good lawyer had to be and was — is and always will be a never 
ceasing fighter. Indeed in the early days in which we first knew of him 
his fighting was often of the same kind as that of the common fighter of 
the world. 

Suitors in the courts not unfrequently appealed to the wager of 
battle. In such cases at first the suitors did their own fighting. The 
grounds were laid out — the judges assembled in most gorgeous 
array — the word was given, and suitors hammered away at each other 
until one should cry craven or until the sun should set. 

This highly scientific method of arriving at a right conclusion had, 
however, its defects. Not unfrequently it happened that one of the 
doughty suitors was killed and although that definitely decided the 
controversy, it had the technical result that no judgment could be 
entered because one of the parties was dead. 

To surmount that technicality, resort was had to champions and the 
lawyers became the champions, and if one of them was killed it was no 
matter because the suitors were alive and judgment could be entered. 

The wager of battle did not, however, survive long in the progress 
of law. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 27 

The courts soon ceased to be the arena of physical contests, the 
controversies were adjudged without battle other than that of the 
intellect. 

The greatest, possibly the only service ever rendered to mankind 
by organized government consists in having taken from each man the 
power to enforce his own rights, or to avenge his own wrongs otherwise 
than in the courts of his country, before honest impartial judges, and 
through competent, able advocates. 

Surely the great credit of this advance belongs to the lawyers of 
England and America. 

To the judges all honor! But the judges were first lawyers, and 
from their office they gained no renown unless they were first and above 
all great lawyers. 

The lawyer was and is the initial force, the first investigator — the 
thinker who solves the problem and lays the result before the judge to 
be acted on by him. 

It is not, however, of the history or function of lawyers in organ- 
izing political societies so that rights and punishments and avenges 
should be awarded and adjudged in courts and society relieved from the 
broils and fighting of individuals or even of their possible agency or 
influence in the future in the greater perfection of the administration of 
justice between individuals that I would to day speak to you. 

Rather would I call your attention to what they have done and what 
they may do in the realm of political science to advance the character, 
promote the interests and raise the moral standard of mankind. 

But before we can study the advance we must know the prior con- 
ditions. 

Before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States such a 
thing as the practical limitation of the powers of government was 
unknown. True it is that many constitutions with more or less limita- 
tations had been in a certain sense adopted by different nations, but in 
none of them was there provided any effective sanction. 

Many treaties, confederations, etc., had been made between nations, 
but in none of them was there any means to enforce them provided, 
save the unexpressed resort to arms, and nowhere was the principle 
recognized that governments exist only by the consent and as the organ- 
ization of the governed. 

For ages before our constitution was adopted "government " meant 
the administration of the affairs of a political community in the interest 
and for the benefit of the governors. 

When these governors, whether called consuls, kings, emperors. 
Aristocracies, or by any other name, wanted more power, wealth or 
glory, war was the means by which they soughtit, and patriotism the high 
name, under which, it was sought to dignify acts that between individ- 
uals would be called robbery and murder Human society had made 
but little advance by organization into political communities, for they 



28 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

were all in arms against each other, animated b)'^ the same spirit of 
aggression and robbery that is supposed to have prevailed in the most 
primitive human society. 

Our Revolution is a good;;ilIu3tration of the general condition. 

England was engaged in wars in which her American colonies had 
no interest. She assumed to tax us for her own benefit, and without 
our being represented in her Parliament, and the war for independence 
followed. 

With the end of that war — with the abandonment of the Articles of 
Confederation under which it had been carried on, and with the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, there came a new era in the political history of 
mankind. 

We were thirteen "sovereign and independent" states, each having 
the high "sovereign" right to injure any of the others by war or any 
minor method — each having the right to negotiate and make treaties 
with each other — each having the right to prohibit or allow personal or 
commercial intercourse and to provide the terms on which it should be 
allowed. 

Now, what was done and what was the great principle on and 
through which this, our Union, was secured? 

I take it to be thus : 

That so far as these thirteen political communities and the others 
which have since been added are concerned the right to make war upon 
each other, the right to make treaties with each other, the right to enact 
tariffs against each other, the right to exclude the citizens of one from 
any rights, privileges, or immunities enjoyed by the citizen of anj' other 
and many other similar rights of mutual injury and destruction which 
had been enjoyed by sovereign states from time immemorial were given 
up and abandoned and a constitutional tribunal. The Supreme Court of 
the United States, was formed wherein and whereby all the few quest- 
ions which might or could arise between these "sovereign" states, 
should be decided; not by clash of arms; not by the method and in the 
manner of wild beasts; but in the language of one of the justices of that 
court: " In the peaceful forms of judicial procedure. " 

Let us think for a moment, Mr. Chairman, what this Constitution 
of ours did to these thirteen original states and those which have since 
been added. 

It provided that ' ' No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance or 
confederation — grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ; emit 
bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in pay- 
ment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law or law 
impairing the obligation of contracts or grant any title of nobility." 

No state shall without the consent of Congress lay any imposts or 
duties on imports or exports except what may be absolutely necessary 
for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and 
imposts laid by any state on imports or exports shall be for the use of 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 29 

the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to 
the revision and control of Congress. 

No state shall without the consent of Congress lay any duty of ton- 
nage — keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agree- 
ment or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage 
in war unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not 
admit of delay. 

Think for a moment of the numberless things which one and 
another of these states has tried to do in controvention of these pro- 
hibitions; think of the conflicts and wars which would have resulted 
with all the horrors and miseries which attend such methods of solution 
of controversies and then think of the constitutional method by which 
the controversies have been actually settled. The peaceful form of 
judicial procedure — the adjudication by the tribunal provided by the 
constitution — the Supreme Court of the land, the elimination of the old 
method, the inauguration of the new. To my mind that seems the 
longest step in human progress and human civilization ever taken ; the 
largest and broadest and happiest political generalization ever conceived 
by the human mind. 

Peace! it said to these jealous, sovereign, independent thirteen 
original states — give up — lay aside forever all your power to injure and 
destroy each other; accept in place the right to cite each other to appear 
in the highest court of the land, there to receive and abide by such 
judgment as right and justice may require. 

Peace! it said to all future states which may join the Union and 
avail of the blessings it distributes with so bounteous a hand. 

Nor were this spirit and purpose of the Union expressed only with 
respect to the states. The affirmative restrictions on the power of the 
general government were many and various and by amendment it was 
provided "that the powers not delegated to the United States nor pro- 
hibited to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the 
people." 

The spirit of the time, too, expressed with so much clearness and 
emphasis in the farewell address of Washington, and in the statement 
of the Monroe doctrine, appreciated and realized the idea that a consti- 
tution was adopted, the central purpose of which was to limit the powers 
of government to their legitimate function — the protection of the citizen — 
the administration of justice and to secure to its citizens the largest 
degree of personal liberty consistent with due respect to the rights of 
others. 

To all foreign nations, friendliness ; entangling alliances with none. 

We were to be a nation by ourselves; free from the trials and trib- 
ulations and the dangers of the past, invoking for our protection the 
limitation of the powers of government and the establishment of courts 
for the solution of all controversies. 



30 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

Now I want to call your attention, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of 
the Albany Law School, to the fact that it was the lawyers of that day 
and generation who did this thing. Their minds conceived the great 
thought that as individual controversies were solved and adjudged by 
courts, so might be solved and adjudged the controversies between 
"sovereign" states. That if fisticuffs and clubs were degrading to 
individuals and dangerous to the community as methods of settling dis- 
putes, the resort to arms was equally degrading as a method for settling 
the disputes of sovereigns and far more dangerous to the well-being of 
humanity. 

And so these lawyers of the Constitutional convention conceived 
the great idea of a Supreme court for the settlement of all controversies- 
that could possibly arise between the original thirteen states or such as 
might be and have been added, whose judgment should be final, and 
the sanction for whose enforcement should be the power of the whole 
people. In this court the battle of the "sovereign" states should be 
fought out with the human intellect for weapons — not brute strength, 
not slaughter and misery, hospital and death, but calm reason and pure 
high souled judgments founded thereon. 

The adoption of the Constitution with the Supreme court was, 
however, not all that was to be done. There remained when the con- 
crete case should arise to construe this Constitution. 

The centennial of the great Marshall has been celebrated too 
recently to make it necessary for me to recall to your minds how nobly 
that duty was performed by the lawyers who argued and the judges 
who decided the great cases brought before them. 

For the first time in the history of the world laws and executive 
acts were held unconstitutional and void by the judicial branch of the 
government and its judgments respected and enforced. For the first 
time the legislative and executive branches learned that it was not for 
them alone to construe the limitations of the Constitution, and that after 
all that they might do there remained for final arbiter, the Supreme 
Court. 

And progress first made in the right direction has gone on and on. 

Less than twenty years ago the Supreme court in the cases of New 
Hampshire and New York against the State of Lousiana reported in 107 
U. S. Reports held that the right of a state which would justify its citing 
another state to the bar of that court must be a right of its own corpor- 
ate capacity and not as representing the rights of its citizens and that 
the court had no jurisdiction of a case founded on a bond of the State of 
Lousiana, and assigned to and held by the State of New Hampshire 
under a law of that state permitting its citizens so to assign and the 
State to hold and collect for their benefit. 

During the past winter the same court in the case of Missouri 
against Illinois has held that the state of Missouri without any direct 
interest in the controversy and merely as representing the interests of 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 31 



its citizens could maintain a bill against the State of Illinois to enjoin 
the latter state from constructing and maintaining a drainage canal 
which should empty into and pollute the waters of the Mississippi river 
to the damage of the citizens of Missouri in health and otherwise. 

Could anything be grander than that? Two "sovereign" states 
contesting in a court of controversy ! Truly I think not. 

And here is a doctrine of expansion which should meet with no 
opposition. 

Wh}^ should not every nation of the world join with us in the creation 
of a Court which should have jurisdiction of all national controversies 
and whose judgments should be enforced by the combined power of the 
world? 

Just in proportion to the civilization and intelligence of a nation will 
the idea of such a court be acceptable to it; will it be able to see that 
the old method of force and arms is brutal and degrading; will it 
appreciate the dignity and honor of appeals to the intellect based on 
thought and intellect ; will it understand that the lawyers should be the 
soldiers of the world doing battle in the courts with their brains and 
reason and giving not a wound or a pain to any human heart. Could a 
God do more? 

And now I present this picture of the lawyer of the future. 

In this great court of nations all the world may practice. It is 
quite possible that litigating European nations may seek here for the 
heart and brain therein to assert and defend their rights. I may see 
before me the man who will so be called upon, the graduate of to-day, 
that is to be the great lawyer of the world. 

See to it, I pray you, that the things which lawyers have done shall 
lose their lustre and become common-place when compared with those 
which you shall do. See to it that devotion to right, justice, humanity 
and peace shall be your guiding star, so that when in turn you tread the 
downward slope of life men shall rise up and thank you for what you 
have done. 



Historical Sketch by George Lawyer 
With institutions of learning, as with individuals, the right to esteem 
and honor should be measured by the good accomplished. 

It is believed that the life and work of this school for the first half 
century of its existence, will furnish abundant evidence to justify the 
hope and pride of its graduates and friends. 

In an age when technical instruction extends to every department 
of art and science, it is difficult for us to comprehend a time when 
definite and systematic training in the science of law was not deemed a 
necessary prerequisite for mastery in the profession. It is therefore, of 
interest to us to observe that long years ago, before the establishment 
of a single school for the study of law, colleges and seminaries were the 



32 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



recognized avenues for promotion and distinction in medicine and 
theology. It was not until after the middle of the nineteenth century, 
that the majority of the bar was ready to admit the value of a system of 
thorough training, investigation and research. Empirical though his 
knowledge may have been, it was believed that the tutelage of a skill- 
ful practitioner, offering immediate opportunities for insight into prac- 
tice, provided the surest road for the success of the apprentice. 

Thus, in the year 1851, schools of law were almost an innovation 
among us. There had been a few attempts to maintain law depart- 
ments, but at that time, the school at Cambridge was the only important 
institution of its kind in America. There are now ninety-six separate 
schools and colleges devoted to the science of law. The founders of the 
Albany Law School were encouraged in the belief that there here existed 
a field of much promise and usefulness. Although always known as the 
Albany Law School, this institution has never possessed a distinct and 
.separate entity. From the beginning it has been a component part of a 
university. 

On the 17th day of April, 18 51, the legislature of New York passed 
-an act incorporating the University of Albany. Its field of operation 
was unlimited. It was empowered to create a department of law, and 
a department of medicine, together with any other departments that 
might be deemed wise and expedient. With but one peculiar but very 
important limitation the university could own real estate. For what 
reason it does not appear, but the creating act provided that the Cor- 
poration could not hold real estate, yielding an annual income of 
more than ten thousand dollars. On the other hand it could incur 
unlimited indebtedness in the appointment of instructors and professors 
in the several branches of study. The university possessed the usual 
powers to grant diplomas and confer degrees and honors with all the 
customary immunities attached. In the year 1859 by an amendment to 
the original act, the diploma of law department, was made sufiicient 
evidence of the qualifications of students for admission as attorneys and 
counsellors at law. 

Directly after the creation of the university a largely attended 
meeting of influential citizens was held, for the purpose of adopting 
measures for the establishment of a Law school. With such a school as 
a center, it was the hope of the promoters, that the remaining depart- 
ments would follow and the purposes of the university be fully realized. 
With the exception however, of Dudley Observatory these were never 
permanently established, although lectures on subjects of scientific 
importance were continued for about two years. And thus the Uni- 
versity of Albany existed hardly more than in name. On the i6th day 
of December, 1851, the Law school began its active work. In some 
respects the institution could not have commenced existence under better 
auspices. While there was neither a permanent nor a suitable home 
•and while its maintenance was dependent entirely upon the tuition fees 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL ^^ 



of Students, still the school enjoyed the influence, reputation and assoc- 
iation of a faculty of three members of the highest character and broad- 
est culture, conscientiously devoted to their work. 

These men were Judge Ira Harris, Judge Amasa J. Parker and 
Professor Amos Dean. To Judge Harris was assigned the law of 
domestic relations, the law of evidence and pleadings and practice. To 
Judge Parker the law of real estate, wills and personal property, and to 
Professor Dean the law of personal property, law of contracts and com- 
mercial law. Judge Harris and Judge Parker were then serving the 
state as Justices of the Supreme Court and brought to their duties, as 
teachers of the law, the results of deep investigation, the experience of 
most successful practice at the bar, a broad knowledge of men, supple- 
mented by the wisdom and conservatism of the bench. 

As a founder of the Albany Medical College, the Albany Law School 
and Young Men's Association, the educational life of this city owes much 
to Amos Dean. 

At the time of the institution of this department Professor Dean had 
been a skillful practitioner for more than twenty years. To his great 
ability and untiring efforts very much of the early success of this school 
is justly attributed. During his administration as the executive officer 
of the faculty, the department acquired a prominence and dignity which 
have contributed much to its subsequent achievements. Professor Dean 
continued to direct the destinies of the school until his death in i86S, 
when he was succeeded by Professor Isaac Edwards, who for a period 
of six years following, added greatly to the strength and reputation of 
the law department. Professor Edwards was a man of most scholarly 
tastes and of rare literary ability. His wide reputation as a writer upon 
important subjects of the law, and acknowledged eminence in the pro- 
fession, contributed to attract large numbers of students from all sections 
of the country. In the year 1879 Professor Horace E. Smith assumed 
the duties of Dean. It was largely owing to the persistency of his indi- 
vidual efforts that a suitable building was obtained for permanent 
quarters. This result could not have been effected at that time however, 
had it not been for the munificence of Mr. Thomas W. Olcott, of Albany, 
who had been a staunch friend and supporter of the school from its 
foundation. Dean Smith, after a long term of faithful service gratefully 
remembered by many of the present generation, was succeeded by 
George W. Kirchwey, now one of the Professors of Law in Columbia 
College. After Professor Kirchwey, Lewis B. Hall, of Albany, rendered 
valuable and efficient services as the head of this department until the 
year 1895, when Mr. Hall resigned. During the following year the 
school was thoroughly reorganized and the faculty enlarged. 

The administration of the present Dean, J. Newton Fiero, extends 
from this time. 

Among the various facilities offered by the city of Albany for the 
study of the law, the first annual catalogue deftly refers to the contact 



34 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

here enjoyed with so many men of the first rank in the profession. Says 
the author: " Few American cities, and none of the same size, can boast 
an array of legal talent superior to the city of Albany." This condition 
is believed to have continued. 

The law department opened in the year 185 1, with a class of 23 
students. Among them now living were Wheeler H . Peckham of New 
York City and Worthington Frothingham and Winfield S. Hevenor of 
Albany, The class for the second year numbered 50, the third 45, and 
the fourth 75. Thereafter the numbers frequently exceeded one hun- 
dred until the outbreak of the civil war, during which time the attend- 
ance was very small. The class of 1 867 has the interesting and honorable 
distinction not only of being the largest numerically, but also because it 
contained upon rolls the names of those who represented every military 
rank and title in the army, from private to brigadier general. Major 
William McKinley, now President of the United States, belonged to this 
class, as did also Justice Irving G. Vann, of the New York Court of 
Appeals, and Justices D. Cady Herrick and William E. Scripture, of the 
New York Supreme Court. 

Every section of the Union was represented, the extreme Eastern 
and the extreme Western states furnishing a large proportion. 

The first course of lectures was delivered in the large hall in the old 
post-ofiice building at the foot of State street, where now stands the 
Government building. For the next two years a room in the Cooper 
building, located at the corner of Green and State streets was utilized 
for school purposes. In the year 1854 the west wing of the Albany 
Medical College, known as Alumni Hall, was erected for the use of this 
department. The course of study at this time was extended from one 
term of sixteen weeks to two terms of twelve weeks each. This arrange- 
ment continued until the year 1859, when the curriculum was greatly 
broadened and the scholastic year lengthened by the addition of one 
term of twelve weeks. This constitution of the law course continued 
until the year 1895, when the division was made into semesters, cover- 
ing a working period of eight months. The most radical change in the 
requirements and arrangements of the course was made in the year 1898, 
when the completion of two full years of study was made essential to 
entitle a student to the degree of Bachelor of Law. By act of the legis- 
lature, in the year 1873, the Albany Law School became a part of Union 
University, since which time it has continued to be a department of that 
institution and subject to its supervision. The university acts through 
its board of governors, which is composed of permanent trustees of 
Union College and of representatives of each of the institutions compos- 
ing the university. The board of trustees of the Albany Law School 
consists of fifteen members, General Amasa J. Parker is president of 
this board. 

Owing to the increase in the numbers of students and the necessity 
ior greater convenience for class room and library purposes, large and 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 35 

more permanent quarters became essential for the continued prosperity 
of the school. In the year 1879, the building owned by the Universalist 
Society and known as the Church of the Redeemer, on State street, was 
purchased, to which location the school was at once removed and where 
since it has continued its existence. The interior of the Church building 
was slightly changed to meet the new conditions. Deslis were provided 
by attaching leaves to the backs of the pews and the stained glass was 
replaced to insure better light. The upper room or auditorium was used 
as a class and lecture room, and the lower room as a library. Even 
these improved conditions furnished comfortable working quarters for 
not more than eighty students. This arrangement however continued 
until the year 1895, when the interior was thoroughly remodeled, 
improved appliances substituted for the old pews and the building 
appropriately divided into lecture hall, class and library rooms, Accom- 
modations are now furnished for a large number of students. 

When the school was removed from the building of the Albany 
Medical College to its new home, appropriate and interesting exercises 
were held, consisting of an admirable sketch of the Law school by Judge 
Parker, whose connection with the faculty did not cease until 1870; an 
address by Judge Samuel Hand, in which he paid a most graceful and 
deserved tribute to the memories of Judge William F. Allen and Pro- 
fessor Isaac Edwards, then lately deceased; remarks by Charles Emory 
Smith upon the life and character of Judge Ira Harris and concluding 
with an interesiing statement concerning future plans and purposes by 
the new Dean, Horace E. Smith. The faculty was at this time enlarged 
and the building more fully equipped for practical work. Since his 
incumbency of the office of Chancellor of Union University President 
Raymond has evidenced deep interest in the welfare of this department 
and the changes made and improvements secured have had his a.-sistance 
and support. The present administration of the Law school is of so 
recent history that but a brief allusion will be necessary. It is gratify- 
ing to the alumni that the standards of instruction have been raised, 
that the course of stud)^ has been lengthened, and that careful, intelligent 
and well directed eiforts have been made to insure an enduring pros- 
perity. For efficiency and for thoroughness of instruction, as well as for 
the essential equipment for the practice of the law, the Albany Law 
School may well concede no superior. The best evidence of these 
attainments is found in the fact although since the year 1894 the 
requirements for admission to the bar in New York state have been 
more rigorous and more exacting than exist in any other state in the 
Union, this school has enjoyed a larger percentage of successful students, 
who have passed their first examination than any other Law school 
represented before the State Board of Law Examiners. 

With the exception of the class of 1 867, the enrollment for the present 
year is the largest in the history of the institution. The graduates now 
number about 2100. Whether as chief magistrate of the nation or upon 



36 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

the bench of the federal or state courts, or in the halls of Congress, or 
at the bar, the alumni of the Albany Law School have acquitted them- 
selves with creditable distinction. 

The ability and fidelity of the founders and promoters, need no more 
convincing proof, than that so great a work has been accomplished, so- 
abundant a success achieved, without the aid of a single dollar of 
endowment. 

With fifty years of experience and labor, with a board of trustees 
zealous to guard and an able and efficient faculty to direct its course, there 
is every reason to believe that the Albany Law School will continue to 
maintain its place as a leader among the institutions of technical learning 
in the state and nation. 



Address by J. Newton Fiero, LL. D., Dean. 

"the ALBANY LAW SCHOOL IN ITS RELATION TO LEGAL 
EDUCATION." 

"Men in Law schools intend to practice law. They should be 
equipped for their profession. Their training should be a practical 
training. Each should have in view the office and the court room, not 
the study and the library." — American Law Review, March, igoo. 

I propose to present to the Alumni of the Albany Law school very 
briefly the practical relation which this school has heretofore borne, now 
bears and should continue to bear toward the education of the average 
lawyer, who intends to gain his livelihood by the practice of the law, 
and in so doing a controlling consideration must be; the time which 
may reasonably be and now is required by rules of court to be devoted 
to the study of the law before a student is eligible for examination for 
the bar. The desirability and necessity for a broad, comprehensive 
elementary education is not to be underrated, nor do I in any sense dis- 
parage the pursuit of those branches of the law which tend toward cul- 
ture as such, and are desirable as part of a liberal education. That is 
to say, the study of what is known as public law, in contradistinction to 
what known is as private law, or in other words, those matters which 
belong to the science of jurisprudence as such, rather than the study of 
statutes and decisions with a view to determining the rights of litigants. 
My purpose is to consider what is desirable and necessary for the 
student who proposes to follow the practice of the law, rather than as 
an adjunct to or complement of a broader and liberal course of study. 

That the student can be more thoroughly educated in a shorter time 
at a law school than by a desultory course of reading in a law office is 
a statement beyond controversy, and no longer open to discussion. 
The experience of the past few years, together with the increased 
number of law schools and students in attendance thereat, has 
fully justified the remark of David Dudley Field, made more than. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 



forty years since, that "There is as much need of public schools for 
the law as for any other science; there is more, for the greater the 
science, the greater the need. Above all others this science so vast, so 
comprehensive, so complicated and varied in its details, needs to be 
studied with all the aid which universities, professors and libraries can 
furnish." 

The view of this subject taken by the authority most competent to 
judge, viz. : the State Board of Law Examiners, is, however, so tersely 
and clearly put in a recent official utterance that I quote briefly. They 
say: "We will assume as well established the propositions that under 
modern conditions of typewriters and stenographers existing in law 
offices, independent of the want of time and ability on the part of the 
average lawyer to lay out and direct a course of law study, law clerks 
cannot obtain therein a proper education in law, sufficient to put them 
on an equality at the beginning of their professional life with their 
better equipped brethren, who have had the benefit of a carefully con- 
sidered and scientifically developed course in a law school, nor sufficient 
for the demands to be made upon them when at the bar, in advising or 
defending their clients. Our observations and experience as members 
of the bar, and of the State Board of Law Examiners of the State of 
New York, establish the proposition as a fact beyond argument, and we 
will not here produce the statistics from our records that make it cer- 
tain. That is also the consensus of opinion among the bar examiners of 
many states." 

The superiority of law school teaching being, therefore, beyond 
controversy the most interesting topic of discussion among legal educa- 
tors has for some time been as to the best methods of study which can 
be pursued to enable the student to obtain a thorough knowledge of 
legal principles within a reasonable time. A discussion of this question 
almost necessarily involves a reference to a somewhat trite controversy 
as to the respective merits of different systems of instruction ; neverthe- 
less, as bearing upon the results sought to be obtained, and the time to 
be spent in legal studies, the methods of instruction are of the first im- 
portance. The more common classification of the systems of teaching 
law as adopted for convenience is : 

First: recitation from text books, under which a certain number of 
pages of an elementary work on a selected topic are assigned the stu- 
dent for study and upon which he is examined the following day; which 
is substantially that used in the elementary and high schools and 
colleges. This is a practical adoption, with slight modifications, of the 
time-honored method by which the student on entering an office was 
given a volume of Blackstone or Kent, save that instead of being left to 
his own devices to master the rule in Shelley's case, he has the benefit 
of recitation to and explanation from the instructor. 

Second: Instruction by lectures, with reference to the reports as 
authority for the proposition laid down in the lecture, and for fuller 



38 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

illustration of the principles involved, frequently accompanied by a 
collateral course of reading from a text-book; the student being re- 
quired to take notes of the lecture. The purpose being not only to give 
authority for the principles but to familiarize the students with the 
leading cases and train the mind in analysis. 

Third: The "case" system, which is defined by Prof. Keener as 
follows: "The case system consists of putting into the hands of the 
student a number of cases on any given subject, taken not at hap- 
hazard, but selected by the professor with a view to developing the law 
on that subject. It must be borne in mind that this method of teaching 
does not consist in lectures by the instructor with reference to cases in 
support of the proposition stated by him. The exercises in the lecture 
room consist in a statement and discussion by the students of the cases, 
studied by them in advance. This discussion is under the direction of 
the instructor, who makes such suggestions and expresses such opinions 
as seem necessary. The student is prepared to analyze each case, 
discriminating between the relevant and irrelevant, between the actual 
and the possible grounds of decision. And having thus discussed the 
case, he is prepared and required to deal with it in its relation to other 
cases." 

The method by text-books, so far as its general adoption is con- 
cerned, is a matter of somewhat late growth by reason of the fact that 
up to a comparatively recent date, few, if any, text-books were ill 
existence especially adapted to the student, with the result that the 
student who was taught under this system was obliged to master an 
enormous amount of detail gathered by text -writers for the use of the 
practitioner from the reported cases, by way of explanation, limitation 
and exception, so that the broad principles were well nigh lost sight of. 
This has been remedied to considerable extent by recent works adapted 
expressly to the use of students. The principal objection to the exclu- 
sive use of text -books is that the student only gets, so to speak, the dry 
bones of the law, and that the question is, how much text he is capable 
of absorbing and assimilating, and his proficiency must depend largely 
upon whether he is so fortunate as to posess a retentive memory. 

The lecture system is the one most familiar to the older graduates 
of the Albany Law School, and is said to have been used almost exclu- 
sively during the earlier period of its existence. The objection to this 
system is that much time is consumed in taking notes of lectures which 
might frequently be better employed in the study of the reported cases 
or text-books than in taking dictation from the lecturer. 

The discussion of cases, as is said by a committee of the American 
Bar association reporting upon the proper course of study for American 
Law schools in 1892, "Is common to all sj'-stems of instruction and is 
practiced to a great extent in connection with text-books and lectures, 
but cases are not in other systems the sole method of instruction." The 
greatest objection which is or can be made to the exclusive use of the- 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 39 

"case" system, is the fact that study of numerous cases for the purpose 
of learning the development and history of the law consumes very much 
of the time available to the student; and this arises very largely from its 
confinement to the doubtful part of the law and the fact that case law, 
except the earlier cases which are frequently much modified by later 
decisions, treat to only a moderate extent the settled rules and princi- 
ples which lie at its foundation, assuming as must necessarily be done, 
that those principles are to some extent at least understood and recog- 
nized by the bench and bar. 

The "case" method of teaching, so-called, as adopted in some of the 
leading law schools of the country is of recent development, and in its 
strictness was unknown at the date of the organization of the Albany 
Law School, and was in its infancy when this Law school became the 
Law department of Union University. 

The plan of instruction producing as a whole the best results and 
bringing out the highest quality of teacher and student is doubtless that 
combination in the use of text-books, lectures and cases which is to be 
found in a carefully prepared printed syllabus in which the principles of 
law are stated very briefly, with citation of authority from standard 
elementary works and from the reports of the higher courts, accom- 
panied by oral examination, explanation and discussion. Thereby, the 
rules are laid down as in a text-book but amplified by the lectures, 
time otherwise spent in dictating lectures is saved, and the cases 
cited are used both for illustration and as authority; thus combining 
the best features of the three methods. This has been substantially 
the method of instruction in this school since 1895, affording as it does 
to the student, the most abundant opportunity for the study of the ele- 
mentary works of the best text-writers, and the examination of the opinions 
of the most able and learned judges, under the direction and advice of the 
instructor, while his proficiency can be tested by recitation and discus- 
sion in the class-room, and oral and written examination. 

The method of instruction pursued has been considered more 
especially by reason of its importance in connection with the time which 
the student may be reasonably expected to devote to the study of his 
profession, either at a law school or in an office, with a view to accomp- 
lishing the best results in the shortest period. When the question of 
time and means on the part of the law student are of comparatively 
little importance, there is, and should be, no hesitation in advising a 
protracted period of study, devoted largely to the study and analysis of 
cases. There is, and can be no doubt, that a course of study extending 
over a term of four years for all students, instead of three as is now re- 
quired from students who are not graduates of colleges, and two years 
now required from such graduates, would be exceedingly useful to the 
profession, and in the end highly beneficial to the public. The higher 
the standard of attainment, the better the character of the bar; not only 
is this so, but a somewhat higher standard of elementary education 



40 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

preliminary to entrance upon the study of the law is exceedingly desir- 
able. The man who is able to pass four years as a candidate for an 
academic degree, and who can follow this study by four years work in 
the line of his profession will be much better equipped, everything else 
being equal, for the practice of the law, than one possibly can be who 
has only received the education now required by the Regents as prelim- 
inarj'- to that study followed by three years in either an office or a law 
school. 

But, however, desirable as it may be that the course study should 
be lengthened beyond a period of three years, it seems to be impractic- 
ble, and this view is very clearly set forth by the Committee on Legal 
Education of the American Bar Association in a report made a few 
years since, in which the following language is used . "In considering 
the course of study in American Law Schools, the committee is embar- 
rassed by the fact that a longer course than two years is impracticable 
for the greater number of schools. The competition of life is growing 
stronger all the time, and is urging young men into active service, 
bread- winning occupations early in life. The youth of America as a 
rule wish to be independent. The sentiment of the profession and the 
public will not sustain, at least in some parts of the country, a longer 
course than two years, and even this is impracticable in some places." 

As a matter of fact, the minimum standard of elementary educa- 
tion required for entrance upon the study of the law should be the Re- 
gents academic certificate, or that required for admission to the scien- 
tific or classical course in our colleges; and this standard should be 
required at the time of the entry upon the study of the law, rather than 
to allow a certificate to be filed within a year thereafter, as now, since 
the entire time of the student should be devoted to the study of the law 
after once entering upon it. This standard being adopted no allowance 
should be made to the college graduate, and no student should be ad- 
mitted to examination for the bar until the lapse of three calendar years 
from the time of his entry upon the study of the law. Four years spent 
at a college does not, and cannot take the place of one year spent in the 
study of the law, and a period of two years is not sufficient for the 
college graduate to acquire that knowledge of the law which will enable 
him to enter properly equipped upon its practice. 

A change of the requirements in that respect would be no great 
hardship, would bear evenly upon all, and would tend very much to 
simplify the work of the law schools; since under present conditions the 
student from the college enters for a two year course without any 
previous knowledge of the law while the student from the high school 
with only an academic education enters the law school, ordinarily hav- 
ing spent a year in the study of the law, or must spend a year in an 
office after completing a two year course at a law school. This situa- 
tion makes it very difficult to properly arrange the work of the first year 
with a view to meeting requirements of both classes of men. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 4I 

Nor can the student profitably spend any part of the academic 
course in the study of the law. "The law is a jealous mistress" and 
requires the undivided time and attention of its students. Hence the 
only change deemed desirable is in favor of a somewhat higher stan- 
dard of preliminary education — and I much doubt whether that can be 
accomplished at this time — and the requirement for three years of law 
study from all candidates for examination and admission to the bar. 
This is feasible and practicable. 

Necessarily assuming that three years is the limit of the period 
which can and ought reasonably to be required to be devoted to the 
study of the law by all students alike, whether college graduates or not, 
the question presents itself as to how much of that time can be most 
profitably spent at a law school, and this is a vital and important ques- 
tion in connection with the law department of Union University. For 
a period of forty-seven years, that is, from the foundation of the school 
up to 1898, that period during which the great body of her Alumni 
graduated from the school, the term of study for graduation was con- 
fined to a single year, and the results obtained from that year's study, 
as indicated by the quality of its graduates, were most satisfactory. 

However, with the growth of law schools having a term of study 
extending over two or three years, with the additional educational 
requirements ; and with the higher standard of legal education demand- 
ed by the bar and the public from those entering upon the practice of 
the law, a period of study of two years to entitle a student to graduation 
with a degree seemed not only reasonable, but absolutely necessary. 
The result of the change to a two year course indicates that it was wise 
and prudent, both by the increasing number of students, and the higher 
degree of proficiency obtained, and the question now presses itself upon 
this school, as upon all others, in view of the fact that only two of the 
seven schools in the state have a course of study for less than three years 
whether it is desirable that the time required for graduation with a 
degree be still further extended. To this step there are very serious 
and well-founded objections. 

It must be within the experience of every person connected with a 
law school, either in capacity of instructor or student, that it is imprac- 
ticable to convey, by lecture, text-book or discussion, to the mind of the 
student, any adequate practical instruction upon question of practice. 
Only by experience in the office of a practicing attorney, or by actual 
contact with the business of the courts, can a student learn to advantage 
the method of procedure. In this branch of the law, theory alone is not 
only substantially valueless, but since procedure is entirely arbitrary, pro- 
cedure in the abstract is exceedingly difficult to impress upon the mind 
of the student. It is only when the concrete proposition is presented to 
his mind as to what shall be done in a particlar case, or he may turn 
to the code or learn from the practitioner the proper method to be pur- 
sued, that he will make substantial progress in learning the practice 
under the Code of Procedure. 



42 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

The Student should have some training of this character before pre- 
senting himself as a candidate for admission to the bar, and this exper- 
ience can only be obtained outside the law school. Moreover, the student 
before entering upon the study of the law, should, in order to perform his 
work to the best advantage, have some acquaintance with the working 
details of the profession. He should at least know that the reports em- 
body the decisions of the court; that the elementary works are compiled 
from those decisions, and are supposed to contain the leading principles 
of the common law. He should know the source of statutory law, and 
the relations it bears to the decisions of the courts. 

These, and many other things, will be learned rapidly and quickly 
by experience in the office of a practicing lawyer, and learned to verv 
much better advantage than by explanation in a law school. It seems 
very clear, therefore, that the entire time which a student should devote 
to the study of the law cannot be spent to the best advantage at a law 
school, but that some portion of that time should be spent in an office, 
following to that extent the old-fashioned method by which the student 
was expected to learn the law. Six months devoted to the actual work 
of an office will not be misspent but can be used to the very best advan- 
tage before entering a law school. The student will then have acquired 
knowledge which will stand him in good stead during his two years 
study at the law school, he will have learned much from breathing the 
"atmosphere of the law" ; at the expiration of his law school course 
another six months spent in an office in the study of the practice and 
in obtaining experience as to the application of legal principles to facts 
will be much more profitable than the study of the theory of the law 
under the ablest instructors. It must not be overlooked, however, that 
everything depends on the choice of the office where the student is 
registered. 

The ideal method to be adopted by the student then, who should in 
all cases be required to spend three years in the exclusive study of the 
law preliminary to his application for admission to the bar, would be a 
period of six months in an office before entering the law school, two 
years at the law school, and another period of six months in an office 
after his graduation. 

Another very important consideration has a bearing upon the term 
of study to be required at a law school and militates very strongly 
against the general proposition that the term for all schools should be 
three years ; that is, the lack of means on the part of very many students 
to pursue their studies at a law school for so long a period. It is unnec- 
essary to cite illustrations or refer to specific instances to indicate clearly 
that very many men who have arisen to the verj' highest eminence both 
at the bar and on the bench, have been of limited means, and have found 
it necessary to rely upon their own resources for whatever educational 
facilities they have been able to obtain. There is probably no body of 
lawyers to be found anywhere of equal standing and character at the 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 43 



bar. and who have occupied so prominently and so creditably, places 
upon the bench, who have been obliged to rely upon their own exertions 
for an education to the same extent as the graduates of the Albany Law 
School from 1851 to 1901. The school has been and is eminently the Law 
school for the man of limited resources who is disposed to make the 
very best use of his opportunities, and the fact that the bulk of its stu- 
dents have been men so situated goes far to account for the exceptional 
success of its Alumni. 

For a very large number of men desirous of pursuing the study of 
the law, attendance for more than two years, and in some instances for 
more than a single year, is absolutely impossible for the reason sugges- 
ted. It is certainly wiser and better that for such men there should be 
an opportunity to pursue their studies in a course intended to meet their 
especial needs, and of which they may avail themselves for a period of 
one year only, if absolutely necessary, or for the entire course as may 
be most convenient, rather than substantially to deprive them of the 
opportunities for law school teaching by arranging a course requiring 
resources beyond their reach. 

While for purposes of culture and higher education, a period of 
three years or more at a law school is eminently desirable, and is earn- 
estly recommended for those in a position to avail themselves of its 
advantages, in case they can spend an additional period before admis- 
sion in an office, there still remains for the Albany Law School the 
place which it has occupied during the half century of its existence, 
where the man of industry, perseverance and ability may pursue his law 
studies at a minimum of cost and receive thereby the maximum of 
advantage. 

Hence the future of this school lies along the lines it has heretofore 
pursued, and while in no wise disparaging the educational facilities 
provided by a longer period of study, the business of the Law Depart- 
ment of Union University should continue to be the preparation of men 
for the practice of the law within a period of time and with an expendi- 
ture of money which accords with the opportunities of men of moderate 
means. 

Another exceedingly important consideration in connection with the 
history of the Albany Law School, its present condition and its prospects 
for the future, relates to the question whether the law can be best taught 
exclusively by the student of the law profoundly versed in its theories, 
enthusiastic with regard to its principles and full of admiration for its 
growth, history and adaptability, or by the practical man of affairs, the 
lawyer at the bar in daily contact with his brethren and the bench, 
necessarily obliged in carrying on his own practice to acquaint himself 
•with the decisions of the court and fully abreast with the practical, as 
well as the theoretical phases of the law. 

This question may be conceded to have been settled, so far as the 
Albany Law School is concerned, at the very outset and the names of 



44 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

its founders and their successors for a long period of years call to 
mmd men prominent at the bar and on the bench, and the history of the 
school demonstrates that not only is the practitioner the most apt 
teacher of the law, but that the busy practitioner, and the hard working 
judge is best adapted to the work in hand, since it is they who must 
necessarily, in carrying on their life work, be most fully abreast with 
the current of judicial decision, most completely in touch with the 
trend of legislation, and most thoroughly alive to the necessity for 
a complete, thorotigh and practical, as well as theoretical legal educa- 
tion. Hence men whose names have to-day been most frequently on 
the lips of those who have addressed you, and in the minds of those 
who sat under their teachings, are those who were at once the most 
active lawyers and the most thorough and competent instructors. 

That a method of instruction combining the best that can be culled 
from the three systems we have considered is most advisable, and that 
a period of study at a law school not exceeding two years, under men 
engaged in the practice of the law% is a reasonable time, under the most 
satisfactory class of instructors, is indicated by the results of recent bar 
examination during which the percentage of failures among the 
graduates of the Albany Law School has been less than one-fourth of 
the average from all other schools sending men up for examination, only 
two graduates having failed to pass in the years, '98, '99 and igoo,* while 
the character, study and attainments of her sons challenge comparison 
with any educational institution in the state or nation. 

It only remains to say that the Trustees and Faculty with the sup- 
port and encouragement of the Alumni will in accordance with the views 
expressed and within the period now fixed as a term of study required 
for graduates, earnestly endeavor to educate leaders for the bar of the 
three legal centers of the state, as the school has already given Peckham 
to New York City, Moot to Buffalo, and Carr to Albany. We shall hope 
to fit men for the bench of our Supreme Court in all its branches, and to 
provide our courts with Presiding Justices and Chief Judges, as now in 
our Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals, as well as educate 
lawyers for seats in the highest Federal Tribunals; just as now the 
school is represented in these various courts by members of the classes 
of '53, '58 and '72. We shall devote our best efforts to educating lawyers 
who, as statesmen may approach that high ideal of public duty which 
has been reached by our most distinguished graduate of the Class of 1867. 
The aim of the school will be hereafter, as heretofore, so to teach 
the principles of the law as to best fit the average man for the responsi- 
bilities which may come to him in the discharge of his duties as a lawyer 
toward his client and his professional brothers, and at the same time to 
fit him to fill any public position to which he may be called, with credit 
to himself and honor to his Alma Mater. ^^ 

*No student graduating in 1901 failed to pass at the June Bar Examination, at 
which 4g presented themselves. The failures in the entire state were 20 per cent,, 
of those examined. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 45 

Evening Session. 

At the evening- session Amasa J. Parker, '64, president 
of the school, presided. Exercises as follows: 

Prayer by Rev. A. H. Lucus. 

Address by William H. McElroy, '61, to Graduating Class. 

Gentlemen: — 

"Ihavespokenof the Albany Law School as 'our' school because I was 
graduated in one of its classes. I am not, however, arrogating to myself 
the title of barrister, realizing that if I did so. Gen. Parker might casually 
recall for my reproof the tale of the boy who, on being asked to which 
church his father belonged, frankly answered: 'Pa's a Presbyterian, but he 
hasn't done much at it lately.' Shortly after leaving school it occurred 
to me that the law and I were not made for each other. Accordingly, 
we parted company. So it is not from the point of view of a lawyer that 
I address you, but simply as man to man, student to student. Standing 
here I recall and I re-echo the stately compliment to scholars with which 
a profound thinker begins one of his famous orations : 'I have reached 
the middle age of man,' he said, 'and yet I am no less glad and sanguine 
at the meeting of scholars than, when a boy, I first saw the graduates 
of my own college assemble for their anniversary. Neither years nor 
books have failed to extirpate the prejudice then rooted in me, that the 
scholar is the favorite of heaven and earth, the excellency of his coun- 
try.' I trust that each member of this class entertains an equally exal- 
ted opinion of the scholar's significance — that is, of his own. For if you 
regard yourselves as excellencies of your country and realize that excel- 
lence is as excellence does, you can hardly fail of achieving a career full 
of usefulness and honor. Noblesse oblige. As you are about to leave 
the land-locked bay of preparation and make for the open sea of practi- 
cal endeavor, let me submit a few suggestions which may be of service 
to you. They shall be brief, for experience has taught that the shorter 
the piece of advice, the greater the chance of its being listened to. 
This above all ; to thine own self be true. 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
"These words, which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Polonius, 
may be called an epitome of your whole duty. You cannot be true to 
yourselves without being true to your Alma Mater, whose blood is in 
your veins; you cannot be true to her without being true to those vital 
principles, lying at the foundation of your profession upon which rests 
the splendid fabric of our Christian civilization. But the task of being 
true to one's self is no light one. The world will do its best to prevent 
you from fulfilling it. She wants you to be true to herself, to what she 
calls 'the existing order,' to fashion, to tradition, to precedent — to any- 



46 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

thing and anybody but yourselves. There is a quaint old rhyme- 
beginning, 

The houses are all alike in a row, 

All the houses alike you know. 
"Mrs. Grundy would fain run all the sons of men through the same 
mould, so as to have them all of one pattern — even as were the Indians 
that stand guard in front of cigar shops. She feels that in conformity 
there is safety. Independent people have a habit of asking leading 
questions and filing protests, and fomenting revolutions, and building 
altars to unknown gods and generally of conducting themselves in a 
way that gives Mrs. Grundy nervous exhaustion. She will strive to 
make you sneeze whenever she takes snuff, to take things as you find 
them, without inquiring whether you find them as they ought to be 
found; nay more, she will try to inform you with her own maternalistic 
spirit that, reversing the most momentous of all questions, you shall 
complacently ask what shall it profit a man if he save his own soul and 
lose the world. But although the task of being true is an arduous one^. 
you will surely accomplish it if you are resolutely determined to do so. 
There is the highest authority for asserting that if one resist Mrs. 
Grundy she will flee from you. 

' 'Cultivate a robust self-esteem A few years ago a leading Massa- 
chusetts judge at a dinner in his honor, made a speech in which he 
stated that directly after he was elected to the bench one of his old 
friends said to him: 'Field, now that you are to wear the ermine, let me 
give you a word of advice — don't take j'ourself too seriously.' I should 
say that young men in these days do not need to have that admonition 
addressed to them, but rather the reverse. There is reason for surmis- 
ing that the tendency of the age here in America is not to take itself 
seriously enough. We Americans have a particularly well-developed 
sense of humor; there are more good stories afloat in the United States 
and more people that enjoy them, than in any other country in the 
world. Well, a sense of humor is a precious gift ; it smooths out the 
wrinkles, it keeps the heart gay, it is the oil of gladness lubricating the 
daily grind. But there is such a thing as having too much humor, or, 
at all events, as giving what we have too free a play, of making light of 
grave matters, of unconsciously cultivating that frivolousness which 
tends to weaken the moral and mental fibre. The men who have made 
the deepest impress have been men who have taken themselves very 
seriously. Of course a genuine, deep-seated self-respect is one thing 
and a protruding self-conceit quite another. A person with a tremen- 
dous swagger and clothes to match, once went parading along a London 
street. His looks were to the last degree supercillious, his whole bear- 
ing was pompous and pretentious. To the joy of the passers-by, an 
urchin hailed him with the challenge: 'Say, Mister, are you anybody in 
particular?' Of course I have no such person in view when I ask you 
to take yourselves seriously. I am thinking rather of Martin Luther,^ 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 47 

exclaiming at the Diet of Worms, 'Here I stand ; I can do no otherwise ; 
God help me; Amen.' 

"Endeavor to lead rounded lives. Edward Everett Hale displays 
at the top of his notepaper the motto. 'That they might have life and 
have it more abundantly.' It is profitable to seek for an abundance of 
living. Max MuUer said that a man who knew only his Bible didn't 
know his Bible. So I may caution you that a lawyer who knows only 
his law books, doesn't know his law books. Be content with nothing 
less than a broad-guage career. Cultivate systematic relations with all 
sorts and conditions of men. Your profession is an exacting one and 
because it is exacting j'ou will need avocations to relieve the strain of 
vocation. He was a shrewd observer who declared that a man can do 
more in half the time, than he can in all the time. To deny yourselves 
periodic rest and recreation would be as foolish as the financering of 
the glutton who killed the goose who laid the golden egg. 

"Stare decisis, stand by the decisions, is an admonition which it 
would be folly to affirm is more honored in the breach than in the obser- 
vance ; nevertheless it is to be taken with several grains of salt. John 
H. Reynolds, one of the commanding figures of the Albany bar of the 
last generation, in a eulogy upon another great Albany lawyer, Judge 
Peckham, the elder, bore witness that 'He respected precedents and 
followed them so far as they tended to a just result, but if they seemed 
to take a wrong direction he was brave enough to prescribe their 
appropriate limit.' Our greatest American poet files a trenchant pro- 
test against the abuse of precedents in the familiar lines: 

New occasions teach new duties. 

Time makes ancient good uncouth. 
They must upward still and onward 

Who would keep abreast of truth. 

Wisdom did not die with those who rendered the decisions which some 
are disposed to stand by as unfaltering, as our old friend, Casablanca, 
stood by the burning deck. A decent respect for the memory of the 
fathers does not commit us to holding that they were infallible. Writ- 
ing of American civilization, Mr. Emerson held that 'a slavish, literal 
following of precedent, as by a justice of a peace, is not for those who 
at this hour lead the destinies of this people.' A precedent is entitled 
to a certain consideration because it is a precedent; but is not an axiom, 
it rarely concludes anybody. Disraeli said that a precedent 'embalms 
a principle'. But there are principles and principles; some are for all 
time, while others, standing for the expedient and the transitory, sooner 
or later outlive their usefulness. Hold fast that which is good but be 
sure that it is good. 

"Take an active, unceasing interest in public affairs. Everybody 
is of more account than anybody and unless you endeavor to conserve 
the interests of the people as a whole, it will serve you right, it will be 
poetic justice, if your interests as an individual suffer. It is more in- 
cumbent upon the professional man, the scholar, to be vigilant for the 



48 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

safe-guarding of the common weal, than upon any other class in the 
community, simply because he is what he is. It is only reasonable, only 
a sound application of the law of compensation, to exact much of ser- 
vice from him to whom much has been given of opportunity. I once 
read an address delivered to a graduating class of doctors, in which 
they were advised to keep out of politics. Poor advice, I thought, to be 
offered to the sons of a republic, of a government of the people, by the 
people, for the people. The responsibility for the corruption, inefficiency 
and vulgarity, which sometimes characterizes the administration of pub- 
lic affairs, rests largely upon the shoulders of upright men, who are 
good at denouncing bad government but by holding aloof from practical 
politics help to make the common welfare the prey of scoundrels. Some 
one has wickedly defined philanthropy to be Tom's conviction that Dick 
ought to do something for Harry. The theory of citizenship held by 
these upright do-nothings in politics, would seem to be analagous to this 
theory of philanthropy. Every citizen of the republic in the nature of 
things, is his country's keeper ; speaking generally, no man liveth to 
himself — unless he happens to be a Robinson Crusoe. 

"My concluding suggestion to you is, turn a deaf ear to those who 
would have you believe that the former times were better than these. 
We are living in the best times that ever were, and are to look forward, 
not backward, for the age of gold — that age when the kingdoms of this 
world are fit for annexation to the celestial kingdom. The promise is, 
that instead of the fathers, shall come up the children. If blood tells, if 
Tennyson was right when he sang that 

The thoughts of men are -widening 

With the process of the suns, 
then we are of even more significance than our sires, and since nature, 
which abhors a vacuum, must abhor an anti-climax, it is a reasonable 
■conclusion that the best times have not come, but are coming. There is 
always a disposition to magnify the past, because it is the past. Dis- 
tance lends enchantment to vanished heroes and adds cubits to their 
stature. The Pilgrim Fathers, the Revolutionary Fathers, Horatius on 
the bridge, the Light Brigade at Balaklava — these and the rest of the 
glorious company of the vanished are ever being celebrated. This is as 
it should be. Gratitude is one of the noblest of the virtues, and also one 
of the most profitable, for to hold in lively remembrance the great and 
_good is to help us to become like them. But while extolling the worthies 
of the past let us not be unworthily self-forgetful. There were fighters 
before Agamennon, Horace reminds us; yes, and there have been fight- 
ers since Agamennon as tremendous as he. Suppose some pessimist, 
aflame with reverence for the Pilgrim Fathers, had contended, say just 
before the tea was steeped in Boston harbor, that 1620 was the golden 
age, that it arrived when the Mayflower arrived. Would he have been 
right? No, he would not have been right, and after the surrender of 
Cornwallis he would have admitted that he was wrong. For the Pil- 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 49 

grim Fathers — such is the judgment of history — could not have made a 
worthier record for pluck, perseverance or devotion to the principles 
that make and preserve a nation, that conserve the sacred cause of 
humanity than George Washington, Albany's own Philip Schuyler, and 
the other Revolutionary Fathers made. Or suppose that some later 
pessimist, passionately enamored of the Revolutionary Fathers, had 
insisted, say during the presidential campaign of i860, that the golden 
age had dawned, not in 1620, but in 1776, that it dates from the Decla- 
ration of Independence. Would he have been more accurate than his 
earlier dyspeptic brother? No, he would not have been, and after the 
war he, too, would have admitted that he was mistaken. For — and 
again I appeal to the judgment of history — just as the Pilgrim Fathers 
could not have done better from Bunker Hill to Yorktown than the 
Revolutionary Fathers did, so the Revolutionary Fathers could not have 
done better from Sumter to Appomatox than the men who nerved the 
arm of Grant at Vicksburg, or the men who marched with Sherman 
from Atlanta to the sea, or the men who went whirling up the valley of 
the Shenandoah, led by that gallant son of Albany, little Phil Sheridan. 
In view of these considerations, we are justified in entertaining the gol- 
den age is not one of the wasted glories of the past; that it is not 
another name for 'the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was 
Rome,' but that it still beckons, still inspires; that there is no ground 
for apprehending that this planet of ours has seen its best days, and that 
its bankruptcy is only a question of time. 

"Gentlemen of the graduating class, indulge me just a moment 
more. Young maintained that the undevout astronomer is mad. He 
was lead to make the assertion because of his profound appreciation of 
the ethical significance of the transcendent splendors of the starlit sky. 
But I submit to you that the heavens do not more emphatically declare 
the glory of God than do those constellations of truth, of justice, of the 
eternal verities, flaming in the moral firmament, with which you will 
constantly be called upon to commune, even as the astronomer com- 
munes with the stars. If, then, the undevout astronomer is to be 
accounted mad, what shall we say of the undevout lawyer? 

"With all my heart I wish you every success and the ability to stand 
success. Pray take with you an old Scotch blessing: 'May the Lord 
love you and the world wodder at your luck'. " 



Address by President A. V. V. Raymond. 

It is impossible for me to ignore the special interest that attaches to 
this occasion, marking as it does the close of the first half century of the 
life of the institution in whose name we are gathered. While it is not 
my province to review in detail the honorable history of these years, I 
may still take from that history some facts and draw some lessons which 



50 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

lend themselves to the purposes of the anniversary address which I am 
expected to give. America is not yet so old but that a semi-centennial 
anniversary has an impressive sound, and appeals to the imagination. 
Among our educational institutions in general "fifty years" is still a 
mark of age to be respected. Some of our best known and largest 
universities, such as Chicago and even Cornell, cannot claim this dis- 
tinction, but among our professional schools such an age is in reality 
exceptional. Only here and there can one be found whose beginning 
reaches back to the middle of the nineteenth century. The reason is 
not far to seek. Until recently the professions did not demand schools. 
They were, as a rule, open on all sides to any who chose to enter. 
Such barriers as they interposed were easily surmounted. The only 
school really recognized and honored was the school of experience. 
Now, experience may be the best teacher, but the tuition charges are 
high, and when they have to be paid, not only by the student but by the 
community at large, a practical age is sure to demand some other system 
of training. This, in fact, is what has been done in recent years. The 
people have grown weary of meeting the cost of experiments upon 
themselves for the sake of teaching young men things about law and 
medicine and architecture and engineering which they can learn in 
other ways, and so have demanded a certain measure of knowledge and 
a certain evidence of ability before allowing ambitious youths to begin 
their professional careers. 

Another influence tending directly to the same result is the increas- 
ing demands of the professions themselves, growing out of the conditions 
of modern life, which call for trained ability for all the world's work. 
This is an age of specialized knowledge, and so technical schools have 
multiplied ; every profession and every occupation insisting upon a pre- 
liminary training all its own. It is possible that we have pushed to an 
unwarranted extreme in this direction, disregarding the practical value 
of general intelligence, substituting technical knowledge for liberal 
culture, instead of making the one supplementary to the other. Be this 
as it may, the importance of special training is so great as to justify all 
of the emphasis now put upon it, and nowhere is this importance more 
apparent than in the profession of law, for law concerns itself with 
questions and relations which are every year becoming more involved. 
The tendency of civilization is to complicate all the problems of life. 
We see this illustrated in the development of machinery. The few 
simple principles which entered into the construction of the first loco- 
motive still appear in the great engines of to-day, but think of the 
intricacy of the mechanism of the modern locomotive, as compared with 
the old, and of how much more it accomplishes. Not only has its pro- 
pelling power been marvously increased, but it supplies heat, and light 
and sets the brakes that overcome its own momentum. All this is in 
the interests of our comfort and safety, an advance in the conditions of 
civiHzed life, but it is possible only by complicating the machinery 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 5I 

whereby the power of steam is utilized. The same is true of all the 
forces that enter into modern life. Simple in themselves they are con- 
stantly being applied in new directions and to new uses, and the process 
involves complications unknown before. As I have already said, this is 
especially true in the realm of government and law. The principles of 
justice, like all primary forces are few and simple, but the extension of 
their application to meet new conditions is possible only by complicating 
the machinery of the law. It is inevitable that it should be so, and it is 
all in the interests of civilized life, but it makes imperative a degree of 
special training and technical instruction uncalled for in the past. This 
is the real demand which has called our law schools into existence, and 
it puts upon them an obligation not easily met. It is not enough to 
teach fundamental principles and trace the history of their development 
in the past. The practical lawyer must become familiar with present 
problems and their solution, and for this the student needs the instruct- 
ion of men who are daily dealing with these problems, not the theorists 
but the practitioners, the men in the machine shop, who are not 
simply studying old engines but making the new ones, applying old 
principles to new conditions, meeting the new demands of the latest 
civilization. 

This is the requirement most difficult to realize, and it presupposes 
conditions which do not always obtain in places where law schools are 
established, but which are found in the city of Albany, as in many 
respects nowhere else in the state. Here laws are made and here they 
are interpreted by the highest court. Here is a bar of recognized 
ability and commanding influence. It is natural that here a school 
should have been organized early, and natural also that from the begin- 
ning it should be distinguished for its practical teaching. The men who 
have composed the Faculty of the Albany Law School have been almost 
without exception men in active practice, speaking from actual experi- 
ence, teaching the things they had learned by their own successes and 
defeats. It is not to be wondered at therefore that the history of these 
fifty years is so full of honorable achievements and that so many of the 
graduates of this school have gained such prominence in their profes- 
sion. Never perhaps in all these years has this school been so well 
equipped for its work as to-day. Its present prosperity is an evidence 
of its merits and holds large promise for the future. It cannot well be 
otherwise than that the beginning of its second half century will be 
marked by a growth that will place it numerically among the foremost 
law schools of our country. All the conditions are so favorable that it 
will be strange if the alumni of this school and especially the public 
spirited citizens of Albany, do not realize the opportunity to build up 
here a school of law second to none in America. All that is needed is 
the co-operation of a few men whose faith is shown by their works. It 
is time that a movement is inaugurated to give practical expression to 
the growing conviction that Albany is the natural seat for a university. 



52 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 

An imposing university building, housing the professional schools 
already established and long ago incorporated in Union University, 
would go far toward realizing the dream of those who see the future of 
this ancient and dignified city identified with education rather than 
commerce. All that is desired cannot be accomplished at once, but 
can be accomplished in time if a definite plan is formulated and followed 
energetically and persistently. 

Young' Ge7itle7)ie7i of the Graduating Class: 
It now becomes my privilege to present you with your diplomas. 
In doing so let me remind you that you go forth as the alumni of our 
honored institution, and it is for you to appreciate the distinction. Your 
own personal loyalty to your Alma Mater will go far to increase the 
honor which the institution reflects upon you. You are the represen- 
tatives of the new life that has come to the old school, the children of a 
new era in its history. Upon your affectionate devotion much depends. 
You have received the practical education which we believe fits you 
in the best way for your profession. You need to bear constantly in 
mind the one truth, that all the progress of recent years only empha- 
sizes the importance of the human element in work. In the final 
analysis, victories are won by the men behind the guns, and the value 
of any product is determined by the men behind the machinery. All 
that goes to the making of true men is therefore of the highest impor- 
tance to you personally. Back of your technical knowledge, back of 
your forensic ability, lies your manhood. Character alone will give 
weight to your words and efQciency to your work. To be the lawyers 
you hope to become you must be the men whose integrity and fidelity 
and self-respect are as unquestioned as their ability, for after all has 
been said, men and not books or courts alone will make the great 
lawyers of the future, as they have of the past. 

After conferring degrees in course upon the graduates, 
class of 1 90 1, President Raymond announced that the Board 
of Trustees in commemoration of the 50th anniversary and 
as a recognition of the fact that the President of the United 
States is a graduate of the School, had resolved to confer the 
degree of LL.D. upon William McKinley, President of the 
United States, which degree was then conferred in the usual 
manner. 

During the exercises the following telegram was received 

from the President: 

Canton, O., May 29, igoi. 
"I extend congratulations to the trustees of the Albany Law School 
on the completion of its fiftieth year of work, and beg that you will 
convey to those participating in the anniversary exercises cordial con- 
gratulations and good wishes. William McKinley. " 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 53 



Upon his receiving the official notice of the conferring 

of the degree the following communication was received 

by the secretary of the Board of Trustees: 

Executive Mansion, ) 
Washington, June 14, igoi. ) 
My Dear Sir: 

I am in receipt of your letter of the 12th instant, informing me that 
the Albany Law School upon its fiftieth anniversary, May 29 last, con- 
ferred upon me the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. 

Please accept for yourself and convey to the other officials of the 
School an assurance of my cordial appreciation of the honor and of the 
kindly message of greeting. 

Very sincerely yours, 

William McKinley. 
Charles J. Buchanan, 

Secretary Board of Trustees, 

Albany Law School, Albany, N. Y. 

At 10 o'clock p. m. the president of the school gave a 
reception to the Alumni and invited guests, at his residence. 
Fittingly rounding out the day, with the work of the 50th 
year in the history of our Alma Mater. 



54 SEMI-CENTENNIAL EXERCISES 



To the Alumni of the Albany Lazv School: 

The Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the 
Albany Law School, appropriately celebrated in June of 
this year, was the occasion for a large and enthusiastic 
meeting of the Alumni of the institution. A permanent 
organization was formed and officers elected. 

The school has been brought into a very flourish- 
ins: condition under the able and efficient direction of 
the Dean, J. Newton Fiero, Esq., a well-known and 
representative member of the Albany Bar. The term 
of study has been lengthened to two years, the attend- 
ance has greatly increased and the course is now thor- 
ough and complete. 

A large and active Alumni Association can be of 
invaluable aid in the further development of this old 
and most worthy institution, and membership in the 
organization will be of mutual benefit to all. 

Your co-operation in this work is respectfully urged. 

Blank forms of application for membership will be 
forwarded you September ist. Your prompt consider- 
ation of this matter is earnestly requested. 

A. Page Smith, 

Secretary. 
Albany, July 20, igoi. 



ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 55 



Officers of Alumni Association. 

Elected May 29, 1901. 



Honorary President, 
Hon. William McKinley, Class '67. 

President, 

Chief Judge Alton B. Parker, 

of the Court of Appeals, '72. 

First Vice-President, 
Judge Irving G. Vann, '67. 

Second Vice-President, 

Wheeler H. Peckham, '52. 

Third Vice-President, 
Justice David J. Brewer, '58. 

Fourth Vice-President, 

Lewis E. Carr, '63. 

Fifth Vice-President, 
Adelbert Moot, '77. 

Executive Committee, 

William P. Rudd, Andrew J. Nellis, 

Samuel S. Hatt, Milton A. Fowler, 

R. C. Coleman. 

Secretary, 

A. Page Smith, 51 State Street, Albany, N. Y. 

Treasurer, 
Edwin Van Wormer, Tweddle Building, Albany, N. Y. 



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